Do you hate to stretch too?

by Glen Depke, Traditional Naturopath Now I understand the benefit of stretching and love when I am working with a trainer and they are actually doing the work of stretching my soft tissue but the thought of doing this myself is followed by almost zero motivation. Let’s face it, I hate to stretch! As mentioned above, I have had trainers in the past that would occasionally take about 10 or 15 minutes working on stretching some tight areas during a time of need, but this was never consistent. And as you already know, I was not going to follow through with this on my own. Then I met Dr Aaron Benes from Imagine Fitness and this may have changed my life forever. What made the biggest difference for me at the onset or working with Dr Aaron was his explanation of fitness to me. He used the analogy of a sports car, sharing that we this car had a 200 horse power engine and six parking brakes. Let’s say this car has all six parking brakes locked up to the extreme, we get in the car, start this up, put it in gear and hit the gas. And what happens? Nothing of course because we have all six parking brakes on to the hilt. Now in most convention fitness settings the focus would be to increase the horse power, you know, build more muscle. So now we’ll say that you have worked your butt off, sweated your “you know what” off and exhausted your body at that core, but you have now increased your horse power to 300. So now when you get in the car and hit the gas, you may notice a very slight movement based on the increased horse power. So now that thought is that if going from 200 to 300 horse power initiated some movement, the obvious answer is to now increase this to 400 horse power. More hard work, sweating your butt off and exhausting yourself to the core, but even at 400 horse power, the sports car is still not operating as you would think. So what’s missing? Of course the fact that the six parking brakes are all pulled to their extreme, making movement of the sports car very difficult regardless of the horse power. So Dr Aaron’s approach is to release the parking brakes. And how is this accomplished? You guessed it, stretching! Ah, my nemesis, that bad word…stretching. I have to say though, after the analogy that Dr Aaron used, this made complete sense to me and yikes, after my initial examination it was obvious that I had all six of my parking brakes on. The funny thing is that I really did not realize this. What came up next was to my surprise though, Dr Aaron made stretching fun to me. I start with about 15 minutes of foam rolling on different areas of my body and my entire routine after this was based on exercises that are designed to stretch the areas of my body that are locked up. To release the parking brakes! I did four months of rotating different exercises along with my foam rolling and something they refer to as “stick work” to continue to release the parking brakes. After this initial four months, I was finally able to begin increasing my horse power and add in some resistance training. What is amazing for me at this point is that I feel a major difference in my resistance training after releasing the parking brakes. And I have worked with quality trainers in the past, but most of that work was focused on the horse power, leaving me with results that were limited. So if you hate to stretch, perhaps you are like I was, locked up with all six of my parking brakes. If you want to learn more on these concepts visit Imagine Fitness. Here you can get information on Dr Aaron and also visit the article tab or review the blog post. There is so much valuable information for you here. Also make sure you register for the complimentary guide, The Seven Secrets to Increased Energy. Even if this is the only piece of information your grab, following these recommendations can create a major impact for your life. I just love sharing valuable information. Enjoy! Dr Aaron Benes Having a strong thirst for knowledge and a desire to enhance the lives of others, Dr. Aaron Benes graduated with a Bachelors of Science in Kinesiology with honors and then went on to receive his Doctorate in Spiritual Cognitive Studies. Dr. Aaron is also a certified Strength and Conditioning Coach with the National Strength and Conditioning Association, a Sport Performance Coach under USA Weightlifting, a FMS (Functional Movement systems/Corrective Exercise) Level II Specialist, and a best selling author of the book titled “Results Fitness”. He continues to diligently study under the top strength, mind, fitness, health and nutrition experts in the world. Read more about Dr Aaron.