I was recently involved in a motor vehicle collision, and suffered minor whiplash. 5 years ago I would have been on the table of a massage therapist and / or a chiropractor, attempting to twist, pop, stretch, and rub the injury out. Not any longer. After 3 sessions with my M.A.T. practitioner, Cathy, I am back in action!

MAT is a revolutionary new process that has evolved for correcting muscular imbalances in the body. It has dramatically improved functional capabilities in people of all ages, providing a pain free lifestyle along with elevating sports performance and career longevity in several professional athletes. This process is a biomechanically-based system called Muscle Activation Techniques (MAT)™. This is the same form of therapy I’ve used to successfully recover from any musculo-skeletal injury I’ve suffered over the last few years, and it has also transformed the way I train my clients.

What is Muscle Activation Techniques, or MAT™?

MAT looks at a muscle’s tightness as a form of protection in the body. Weak or inhibited muscles can create the need for other muscles to tighten up in order to help stabilize the joints. MAT gets to the root of pain or injury by addressing muscle weakness rather than muscle tightness. This helps to restore normal body alignment, thereby, decreasing pain and reducing the risk of injury.

Check out my Gym Chat interview with Eric Seifert, one of the first Canadians to become certified in MAT and one of only 6 Canadians to achieve a mastery level MAT certification:

Bridging the Gap Between Fitness and Rehabilitation

MAT enables you a new lease on your active lifestyle. With MAT, you can return to your sport or activity with renewed strength and pain-free. With MAT, athletes of all ages perform at a higher level without injury, allowing them to “stay in the game”. Another important aspect of this therapy is that everyday people get treated like million dollar athletes! You get a full hour of 1-on-1 personal attention with an MAT specialist and will never be handed over to an assistant.

What makes MAT™ unique?

While most therapies focus on treating the muscles with tension and/or pain, MAT gets to the root of pain or injury by addressing muscle weakness rather than muscle tightness. MAT views muscle tightness as a form of protection in the body. In this short video, Greg Roskopf, the founder of MAT, does a great job of explaining the key differences between other traditional therapies (ie: physiotherapy, massage, chiropractic, ART, and various stretching programs) and Muscle Activation Techniques… check it out:

It’s important to understand that weak or inhibited muscles can create the need for other muscles to tighten up in order to help stabilize the joints. The goal of MAT is to identify the inhibited or weak muscles that are creating a protective response and then ‘jumpstart’ these muscles in order to improve their contractile capability. If the tight muscles are stretched or massaged—without addressing the root cause, the inhibited or weak muscle—then we may have violated the body’s protective mechanism. We must know that when we increase range of motion through modalities like stretching or massage, that there is also stability through that increased range. MAT provides the checks and balances system to make sure that this happens. That is why MAT is a great adjunct to all forms of exercise and therapy.

Check out what pro bodybuilder Ben Pakulski has to say about Muscle Activation Techniques:

The goal of MAT is to correct the problem before an injury occurs. And injury is just a ‘symptom’ of a deeper issue. The symptom is not the problem. It is a result of the over-stressing of an area of the body, due to muscular imbalances. Conventional therapy will typically treat the symptom. This means that the cause of the injury is not being addressed. The end result is that the athlete does not heal, or they go on to experience a more severe injury.

Muscle Activation Technique has been a God-Send to me and my clients… I highly recommend you learn more about it on their site at MuscleActivation.com. Also check out Vince Delmonte’s experience with MAT in the video below.

Wishing you health and balance.

Josh Hewett

Muscle Activation