Mel Siff Blog

Here we are witnessing a discussion bwteen Mel Siff and another distinguished member on the Supertraining Forums

Member<< I might take issue with some of this and ask for greater clarification.
While it is true that for general purposes a muscle is “measured relative to
its resting, unactivated length”, the relationship between lengthening and
shortening is relative to the extremes of the specific action being examined
and would seem to have nothing to do with “resting, unactivated length”….

While it is true, that the “attempt” to contract against opposing force
provides tension to the muscle in all three muscle action/contractions, true
contraction “only” occurs when the filaments actually “slide”, providing
a “shortening”. So even though we might be able to loosely term the act of
tensioning, “contracting”, we would be acknowledging that the “attempt to
contract” is “understood”. >>

Mel Siff:

***I was clarifying the definitions and analysis of muscle action according
to what is accepted in standard high level texts and was not trying to create Read more…

.

You may recall a post on the value of belts in lifting which requested that I
review a series of articles which Paul Chek, a regular speaker on the fitness
circuit, recently wrote on the subject in Testosterone emag (see the archives
of the Supertraining eGroup). Relying on some rather dubious biomechanics
and clinical anecdotes, he deduced that all belt usage is detrimental to
lifting. Well, he posted some rather unhappy reactions to my review on
another weights user group. In one of these letters, he stated:

<<In summary, it is not a case of believing in the belly button “going in, or
going out”, it is a case of the order of events. If the body functions
correctly, segmental stabilization via the inner unit will prepare the system
for force generation. This is why I often say in my lectures, “in order for
the musculoskeletal system to stay healthy, stabilization must always precede
force generation”. >>

My response may be of interest to some of you:

*** “It is totally incorrect to state that stabilisation precedes
mobilisation. Neither is this taught or applied clinically in physical Read more…

Deepak Chopra has become a new-age celebrity guru for physical, mental and
spiritual health, promoting a fuzzy philosophy with overtones of Ayurvedic
medicine of ancient India and remnants of his association with the Maharishi
Mahesh Yogi’s Transcendental Meditation (TM) movement. The first link below
give you the adoring disciple’s view of this man and his philosophy (peppered
with jargon like “Quantum Healing” meant to impress rather than elucidate),
the second is from a skeptical viewpoint.

1. <http://www.chopra.com/>

2. <http://www.trancenet.org/chopra/news/ncahf.shtml>

Typical of many such gurus, Chopra has woven a very compelling web of fact
and fiction, theory and law, relying on his genuine medical education, so
that even some very intelligent folk can easily be drawn into this wonderful
world of “practical mysticism” and “therapeutically applied quantum physics.”
In doing so, he often does little justice to Eastern healing arts or Western
medicine and science, although he does an admirable job of constructing some
very persuasive guruesque treatises that have made him commercially very
successful. As some of our previous letters have noted about many people in
certain Western countries who are rather willing to pay for their dreams,
“you can fool most of the people most of the time.”

Compare both of the sites above and judge for yourselves.

Mel Siff