Sophisticated Muscle Control

[Mark]

I have nothing on the topic but I hope Coach Szolek would be willing to share...


gracias

[Scott Sonnon]

Until the post publishing fog clears, enjoy an old-time reel:
http://memory.loc.gov/mbrs/varsmp/1905.mpg
Wait for the young lady to finish her routine to see Treloar.

[Doug Szolek]

Thanks for remembering to bring this up Mark :)

I'm just going to give a few ideas of what I've been doing with this and what it has lead to in me. If you need/want further clarification don't hesitate to ask.

Years ago I worked at a small back woods gym cleaning the equipment and signing up members. Because of the open stereo policy I often sat through long shifts with very heavy beat driven music thumping in my head. After seeing a "stupid human tricks" act on Letterman where these two Scottish brothers danced their pecs to "Dueling Banjos" I was hooked. I started out by pressing my hands together to learn the kinesthetic feedback get my pecs to flex and soon enough I was dancing them away to the beats at the gym. Years went by and my analytical tendencies had me working to isolate the contraction of many more of my "prime movers". To where I was practicing it over the whole body once or twice a week.

With the birth of CST, what had been mere toying with this training turned into serious study and some interesting side effects popped up.

One, my recovery time decreased, and my strength and coordination increased. Now this did not happen in a controlled double blind environment, but I'm familiar with my gain and recovery abilities to know when they've improved.

And strangest of all, just about a month ago, I was watching in awe at the performance of some gifted youngsters at a local skate park, when a rapid temperature drop had me shivering to keep warm. The strange thing was that the shivering wasn't the gross motor appendage shaking that we all get, it was individual muscles tensing and relaxing very rapidly. Specifically my lats, pecs, delts, quads and biceps. I endured the discomfort of the cold to take notes on exactly what was going on.

Ever since, I've been increasingly skillful at rapidly vibrating a target muscle as I've seen horses do to shake off flies. I'm finding it very useful as a targeted means of vibration training to release tension in my main areas of holding it.

I am currently only practicing this casually in between sets of exercise for the targeted muscle groups and before bed I'll first tense the muscle as hard as I can and hold it briefly, then vibrate it rapidly for about 10 seconds.

My hunch for what it's doing is that it's coordinating my voluntary muscle control so that when I perform a given action I'm more able to only recruit the necessary muscle to do the work without the all too common recruitment of the antagonist muscles (thereby increasing my work capacity or strength). Also by rapidly vibrating the muscles I'm pumping them with nutrient rich blood and simultaneously releasing the residual tension that would constrict the natural blood flow through the tissues. Allowing a double dose of increased recovery.

The best way I've found to tense the muscles in a relaxed fashion is to support the joints affected by the given muscle so that it does not have to fight gravity when relaxed. From there place a hand on it for tactile feedback and patiently tense the muscle trying to do so without involving any of the surrounding muscles (whether helpers or antagonists).

This is what I've been toying with in my free time and I'm really enjoying the discovery. Let me know if it makes sense to you and if any further clarification is needed.

Always willing to help,

[anson]

Check out http://www.maxalding.plus.com. It has some good info on muscle control + complete courses. Also, http://www.sandowplus.co.uk for some additional muscle control courses.

Ari