How did I gain so much weight?

How did I decide it was time to lose all of the weight?

How did I learn the right way to get in shape?

How many times have I tried in the past and failed?

How do I know I will be successful this time?

How much time do I spend planning for my future successes?

Mind-boggling People Questions:

1. Why do people pretend to listen to what you are saying?
2. Why do people always seem to be so pumped up about new things at first, only to have it fizzle out so quickly?
3. Why do people miss the contradictions in the material they read?
4. Why does everyone keep looking for the fountain of youth when it is right in front of them?
5. Why do most people fail to work hard?
6. Why do people stop before failure when they are told to go to failure?
7. Why do people insist they must do more to get results?
8. Why do people fail to track their results?
9. Why do people put such a strong emphasis on the scale?
10. Why do most people fail at physique transformation?

Each of these is going to make a great blog post during this mission because there is alot to each item.  Remember, I’m not seeking answers to these questions myself, but I’m throwing the questions out there for you to think about.

• Enhanced fitness
• Enhanced ability to perform skilled movements
• Increased mental and physical relaxation
• Reduced risk of injury to joints, muscles and tendons
• Reduced muscle soreness
• Reduced muscle tension
• Improvements in the connective tissue

It is very important to warm up before stretching.  Stretching a cold muscle is a terrible idea.  I generally do my stretching either after a cardio session or after doing some foam rolling (which warms up the muscle via massage).  Warming up can include joint rotations.  There is also a recommended order for doing your stretching.  You should stretch in the following order:

• Back
• sides
• neck
• forearm and wrists
• triceps
• chest
• buttocks
• groin
• thighs
• calves
• shins
• hamstrings
• instep

This is designed to cover your entire body.  You should hold each stretch 15 to 20 seconds.  Maintain normal breathing patterns.   Always stretch after doing foam rolling as it helps to improve functionality of both the muscle and the joint and make the changes more permanent.

If you want a detailed plan for stretching along with diagrams that show you how to do the stretches, I recommend the book Stretching by Bob Anderson.

When you foam roll you restore your body’s optimal muscle function.  The basic idea is that the foam roll is used to apply gentle force to release knots or adhesions in the muscle that wind up creating altered movement patterns (hence, the reason I was getting torn calf muscles while running).  Foam rolling will reduce your chances of injury and will relax the muscles in your body.  It is like a self-massage.

The reason that foam rolling is important is that it loosens up the muscles.  Tight muscles restrict the range of motion for your joints.  This modifies the normal neural feedback to the central nervous system.  This will lead to poor movement patterns, which can cause fatigue and injury.  Foam rolling is also known as self-myofascial release.

Self-myofascial release has the following benefits:

• Corrects muscle imbalances
• Increases joint range of motion
• Reduces muscle soreness and relieves joint stress
• Maintains normal functional muscular length

There are some specific areas that really need self-myofascial release. 

Iliotibial Tract (IT Band)

The IT band runs down the outside of your leg.  Chances are that if you do not foam roll you can run your hand down the side of your leg just above the knee all the way up to just below the hip and you will feel tenderness.  This is the IT band that is sore.  Rolling the IT band daily relieves the pain you are feeling, relieves back pain, aligns the leg muscles and frees up your knee joint.

Piriformis

The piriformis muscle is one of the causes of sciatica.  When that muscle tights up it presses against the sciatic nerve, causing major pain.  Rolling the piriformis muscle daily will relieve lower back pain and stress in the back.

Hamstring

The hamstring tends to be tight in most people.  Foam rolling releases the trigger points in the hamstring that cause it to contract tightly.  Daily rolling of the hamstring will cause it to loosen.  This will help your running movement.

Quadriceps

It feels awesome to roll your quads.  The tension that you get in that area after a good workout gets released when you roll the quads.

Stretching

Always stretch your muscles after you foam roll.  They are primed for stretching when you complete foam rolling.

Frequency

I recommend rolling daily.  You can use your foam roller to roll your upper and middle back (lower back is not recommended).  You can even roll your lats and shoulders using a foam roller.  The benefits will become evident right away.  Give it a shot by purchasing one from Perform Better.

PS:  To an unnamed person, thanks so much for your encouragement.  I think you should check back on Day 84 for the shock of your life.  The website link you sent me was not impressive to me at all.  I guarantee I will look better than that when the 84 days is over.  Thanks again for your encouragement.  It was much appreciated.

Matty’s Workout Log:

I am pumped for this new mission.  You are going to see some major changes in my body over the next 84 days.  As mentioned previously, I will be doing reveals every 21 days.  This means I will be completely covered up for all pictures except for Day 1, Day 21, Day 42, Day 63 and Day 84.  At the same time, I am going to be taking pictures uncovered that I will store away.  I will use those for a video like Adam: RTP 2.0 Blog.  This is the point in time where I expect serious results.  I am working harder than ever before and that means I will get better results as a reward for that hard work.

I have such an odd body.  With 16.75% of body fat, it must all be in my back and sides because I have gotten so much leaner everywhere else.