How to Do the Best You Can Possibly Do

Tony Robbins makes a comment on how to get someone to do the absolute best they are capable of in any function, any sport, any situation. The method he refers to is NLP, or Neuro-Linguistic Programming.

It involves your personal physiology, as the famous early-twentieth century psychologist William James said, "thought follows action, and action follows thought." One follows the other. If you put yourself into the physiology (the actual action of the situation, in other words, the muscular postioning or movements of the body) of the best that you ever did when remembering a situation, you can repeat it.

For instance, to a basketball player who's not doing so well at free throws, one could say, "do you remember the best free throw shot you ever made?" In a moment, he would say, 'why yes.'

If one can remember the best they did in any situation, one could put themselves mentally back into that environment, and physically too. Stand they way you would stand if it were your best free throw. Make your face look the way it would look if it was your best free throw shot. Feel the way you would feel if it was your best free throw ever. Put yourself mentally into the postion you were in, by imitating the physiology exactly the way you would be in doing the best free throw, and you can do it again. And again and again.

Perform this with any situation; golf, a business deal, a workout, preparation for a test or an exam, any sports situation, complete confidence in a meeting, asking out one of the opposite sex you admire a great deal, and hundreds of other situations. Try it.

Greg Mangan
"VRT Man"

VRT versus Weight and Exercise Machines

In regards to a weight-free form of bodybuilding such as Visualized Resistance Training, I would have to quote Lewis Mumford:

"The cycle of the machine is now coming to an end---Man is at last in a position to transcend the machine, and to create a new biological and social environment, in which the highest possibilities of human existence will be realized, not for the strong and the lucky alone, but for all cooperating and understanding groups, associates, and communities."

-The fact that an exercise system such as this has eclipsed the need for machines to shape, alter, and strengthen the human body is notable.

Greg Mangan
"VRT Man"

Strength Analysis and Observations of VRT

A gentleman who wrote to me about VRT had this to say. My response to him follows this.

"Hello Greg, I have been following a program of VRT exclusively for quite some time now, several months in fact. I recently tried to duplicate some of the lifts I had done previously. The results were shall we say, less than expected. The weights felt incredibly heavy and cumbersome. After the session I thought about why this occured. Obviously specificity plays a big role.

I also spoke with a friend who is a physical therapist and runs one of the major rehab clinics in the area. He pointed out that during VRT training you are working in a "loadless" format as opposed to a "loaded" format with weights/other objects. I had heard of this term "loadless" training before. An article by Mel Siff, one of the worlds top sports performance experts, I believe coined this phrase.

My friend David, the therapist, went on to say that in a loadless training situation, yes, the fibers do contract and one can experience a deep cramping sensation. Yet, you are limited in developing strength beacause this type of training limits how many fibers you can recruit. He went on to say that lifting under "loaded" conditions, weights, etc., one can push or pull against some object thereby increasing leverage, which in turn allows one to contract more fibers and produce more strength. Also, with loadless training there is no stability or balance factor as well, which will also cause less fibers to be contracted. Of course there is the obvious, adding extra weight will cause more fibers to contract.

After all this, I have to say that I have never used any type of training modality that made me feel better after a workout. My friend had no explanantion for this. I told him this was commonplace among people who used VRT in their training. I really do struggle with this "losing strength" thing. I know that specificity is the major player here, but I wonder what type of strength does VRT build? Perhaps you can shed some light on these comments. By the way, I have no desire to lift and it is certainly not my contention to cast any negativity toward VRT. This is why I have chosen to address my concerns here, instead of at the forum."

Thanks,
Shane.
=========================
My response:

"Shane, I wouldn't exactly call VRT a "loadless" format vs. one that is "loaded." The terminology can be deceiving. Just my tangent on the definition. I'm sure David, your therapist, understands flexors pulling against extensors and vice versa. Any load can be maximized by the opposing muscle group. Perhaps one can be limited in gaining strength by the quantity of the load put on the opposing muscle group. While the entire musculature is in full balance, the load should approximate the full capacity of the opposing muscle, or isostatic load, in which one could not move a weight whatsoever. I understand fully what he means by balance and stability and the body, in the need to right itself, would perhaps incorporate many more muscle fibers to maintain stability. Muscle fibers in other muscle groups, though.

However, I take to task the amount of the myofibrils that are recruited in any given exercise. In a total state of tetany of flexors and extensors, all myofibrils are made up of sliding filaments, and it is an 'all or none' response, not just some of them, in which the sarcomere is in contraction. One cannot utilize only a portion of the myofibrils in a sarcomere.

I know you like VRT, Shane, but if a brute increase in strength alone is what you are trying to achieve, it would probably depend on how "hard" you do VRT. Is it really an all out effort, so that you can later check on your progress with weights? When you were lifting weights alone, how long did it take for you to increase your strength, and by how much? (What percentage? Like how long a period of weightlifting to go from a 180 lb. bench to a 200 lb. bench?)What I'm getting at, is that it's possible to gain strength faster with weights than VRT; BUT it has been shown that one can increase strength as fast or sometimes faster with VRT, depending on how long it's done, and with how much effort. I am glad to hear it makes you feel good, however. That's a real plus in and by itself."

Greg Mangan

Focus on Goals for VRT

Visualization is a primary function to attain everything that our hearts' do desire. The visualization aspects of VRT will help you make good choices for your future.

All things are a choice. Choose what it is you want or will become.

Once you have chosen your goals, and you have come to a degree of prioritization as to what is the most important, what is of secondary importance and even tertiary importance, the aspect of visualizing and believing comes into play and is very necessary to speed up attainment of the goal.

Focus on the goal and desire it. It is what you want. Keep your mind free of thoughts of things that you do not want. Make that goal real; see it, feel it, even hear it. Create an imaginary situation in which you attain it, using as many of your senses as you can; make that vision as real as possible. Go into a gentle state of meditation, and say to yourself, "this is what I want." Let it slowly subside into your subconscious; in other words, come out of your meditation and forget about it.

The "mind over matter" situation will take over your life and make for you the goals that you engender. All you have to do is believe. And let it take place on its own terms.

Greg Mangan
"VRT Man"

VRT and Neuromuscular Coordination

Various studies have been done on the VRT technique by Russian exercise physiologists in the mid-nineteen eighties. They dubbed this ancient system of exercise "pumping imaginary iron", or more specifically, "mock weightlifting."

A variety of tests were done on factors done on conduction velocity, and their summation was that this system of exercise "increases neuromuscular coordination and speed of movement" as evidenced by an increase of contractions in the sarcomere (muscle cells). Evidently the myoneural junction (junction between nerve and muscle) has a tendency to secrete the neurotransmitter acetylcholine across the synaptic gap at a much greater velocity. Coordination would be directly related to faster movement of the muscles.

Students of the VRT System can find themselves at an advantage in athletic situations regarding speed and coordination; everything from tennis, badminton, track and basketball to running and wrestling.

Greg Mangan
"VRT Man"

Vasocongestion in VRT and Weight Training

The closest form of resemblance that VRT has with weight training is the concept of vasocongestion, commonly referred to as "the Pump."

The brilliance of VRT is pitting a flexor against an extensor, and thus creating a demanding relationship on the vascular network of the muscle group involved, much in the same way as the pump that is created in a weight training movement. The result is vasocongestion, the muscle-swelling 'pump.'

The level of vasocongestion is really a matter of controversy, for for the most part it is not measurable, but it is comparable to the feeling that is generated as a pump from weight training. And as Sigmund Freud said, the "greatest decisions are best left up to feelings." It is with that that I agree 100%.

Greg Mangan
"VRT Man"

Various Places for VRT Exercises

VRT is such an adaptable exercise that it can be done virtually anywhere, anytime, and in any place. Take for example waiting at a bus stop. One could do a standing VRT-style bench press, or VRT dumbbell curls, a VRT tricep press, a VRT military press, or VRT squats. Without moving from your spot. While no one is looking, of course.

The various places and situations where these could be performed is limitless; strolling through a supermarket, for instance, one could perform one-armed curls while pushing the cart with the other arm; stopping to look at the meat while doing squats; doing imaginary one-armed pull-ups while heading down the frozen pizza section; doing imaginary dead-lifts while opening the ice cream freezer door, and other various situations.

Really, just as the imagination allows you to do any one of various exercises, so too are the situations that one can do them in offer an endless number of times and places to do it in. No gym is needed. No special place is needed. It can be done throughout anyone's day.

Greg Mangan
VRT Man