I hope all of you had a chance to download the interview with Craig Keaton the other day, and if you missed it go back and check it out.

Interview with movement coach Craig Keaton

Random Updates

Some random updates today as I feel like there are so many things going on I wanted to get them out to you.

Arthrokinetic Reflex

MC has a great blog entry about the arthrokinetic reflex, see below

Arthrokinetic Reflex: Joint action affects Muscle Performance

I had a reference to a blog post I wrote on it in the past below here

Mobility-vs-stability-primitive-patterns-z-health-and-more

Here is an excerpt from a comment I posted on her blog:

There is tons of stuff going on in the upper neck region related to nerve function and head position and the arthrokinetic reflex is just one of them (maybe the main one, but hard to say).

More tension to add tension is not efficient and results in decreased performance. My buddy Frankie like the text “Minimal Effective Tension” and I would agree

Hamstring flexibility can be affected by TONS of stuff, including what time of the day it is even (source http://su.pr/8rKFwJ). I saw a poster at ACSM this year that showed a decrease in hamstring flexibility and strength (I think) by doing a spinal slump (slump forward and bring your head to your knees) from the increased strain on the nerves themselves; thus the body trying to protect itself.

I explain that when you crank your neck funny it is like kinking a hose and it slows down the water flow (muscle power).

The killer part is that you can do enough mobility work that when you bring your neck to that position it will NOT have a bad effect on muscle strength.

For example, at the recent Z-Health R Phase cert we did a similar demo with the feet and they were unable to jam my ankle joints since I’ve done enough mobility work that my nervous system can hold the joints open; even under high force.

Rock on

Mike T Nelson

Time Magazine says “Exercise Blows”

Time magazine recently published an article about exercise and how it is ineffective for weight loss in an article called “Why Exercise Won’t Make You Thin” by journalist John Cloud (photo: creative commons / angela7dreams)

While I agree with that premise that exercise ALONE without any dietary control is ineffective, it may give people the idea that exercise in general sucks and I did not want to do it any way.  That is NOT even CLOSE to true.   There are TONS of benefits to exercise and if they could put it in a pill (and yes, they are working on there, see the link Exercise in Pill) it would be the best selling pharmaceutical pill in history!

I was going to go off and write a whole rant, but Dr. John Berardi at Precision Nutrition already beat me to it, so see his article below

Why Exercise STILL Doesn’t Work

That is enough for today!

Rock on

Mike T Nelson