September 1 marks the official release of MAT43.

And for me, this is a pretty exciting step.
I was fortunate enough to be one of only 12 practitioners who went through the original four-month beta process directly with MAT founder Greg Roskopf.

Four months.
Four weekends.

And a group of practitioners who had already gone through some of the highest levels of the MAT education system.

I’ve personally been involved with Muscle Activation Techniques for nearly 15 years.

MAT has shaped the way I look at exercise.

It has shaped the way I look at the muscular system.
It helped me build my career and Golf MATchanics.

But MAT43 starts bringing another piece into the process.

EXERCISE.

​And that’s why I believe we could be looking at the beginning of a new era of MAT.

THE GOLFER’S PROBLEM: MOVEMENT DOESN’T ALWAYS MEAN CONTROL

As golfers, we make a huge assumption about our bodies.
If we can move somewhere...

we assume we can control that movement.

Those aren't necessarily the same thing.

Your hip may physically have 80 degrees of motion.

But what if your muscular system only has strong control through 60 degrees?

You still have the range.
But you may not have the same muscular control through all of it.

That last 20 degrees of Range matter

For a golfer, that matters.

Golf asks us to rotate into the extremes ranges ..
a Golfer has to produce force into those ranges...
and then control our muscles as we move out of them.

The last few degrees are extremely important.

And this is where muscle function enters the conversation.

THE GNN CONCEPT: LIGHT UP THE MUSCLE

Here’s one of the easiest ways I explain muscle function.
Think about a light switch.
You walk into a room.
You flip the switch.
What do you expect?

CLICK. ON.
You don't want the light flickering.

You don't want to flip the switch and wait to see whether the light eventually decides to turn on.

You want an immediate response.

Muscles needs to respond the exact same way.

When your nervous system asks a muscle to contract...

WE WANT THAT MUSCLE TO LIGHT UP.

We want it available.
We want it capable of producing the contraction we're asking for.

That’s a huge part of what traditional MAT has taught me.
Because just because your body can create a movement doesn't necessarily mean every muscle involved in that movement is contributing the way we think it is.

Traditional MAT works on improving that muscular connection.

MAT43 starts adding another piece.
​LOAD.

SO WHERE DOES MAT43 FIT?

Traditionally, we improve muscle function through MAT...
then eventually we exercise.

The two absolutely complement each other.
But they've mostly lived in two different worlds.

We do MAT.
Then we go train.

MAT43 starts bringing those worlds together.

It takes the specificity of higher-level MAT work and starts adding exercise directly into the process.

Now we're adding:
Movement.
Load.
Strength.

And we're seeing how well the muscular system handles force as the demand increases.

That leads into one of the major concepts behind MAT43:

​NEUROMUSCULAR ENGINEERING

​Neuromuscular Engineering is the systematic process of evaluating how well the muscular system can produce, tolerate, and control force, then using that information to guide exercise and strength development.

PERSONAL TRAINING AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL

This may be one of the most interesting parts of MAT43 for me.
Think about a traditional workout.

You do three sets.
Maybe four.

You increase the weight.
You finish.
And then...

WE WAIT.

How do you feel tomorrow?
How do you feel two days later?
Did we do too much?
Did we do enough?
Did your knee flare up?
Did your shoulder get pissed off?

As trainers, we make educated decisions.

We watch your technique.
We watch fatigue.
We ask how you feel.
We use our experience.

But there's still judgment involved.

You look like you can do another set?

Okay.

Let's do another set.

What's fascinating to me about MAT43 is that we have another checkpoint.
We exercise.
Then we reassess.

And that gives us more information to help answer:

DO WE DO MORE?
Or...
ARE WE DONE?

If the muscular system is still showing us what we're looking for, maybe there's more available.

If not...
enough is enough.

We move on.

That means the workout can potentially become individualized:
SET TO SET.

To me, that's personal training at the highest level.

And it fits one of my favorite philosophies around exercise:
STIMULATE. DON'T DECIMATE.

The goal isn't to crush somebody.

​The goal is to create enough stimulus to get stronger without blindly pushing past what the system can tolerate.

THEN I WENT THROUGH THE PROCESS MYSELF

During the MAT43 beta class, we used each other as test subjects.

We were constantly:
Testing.
Exercising.
Retesting.
Learning.

Correcting our testing positions.

And working hands-on with Greg to better understand the system.
One thing immediately stood out.

When the test didn't line up with the exercise...
or we weren't doing something correctly within the system...

THE EXERCISE DIDN'T FEEL RIGHT.

Something was off.
Then we'd correct what needed to be corrected.

Retest.

Go back to the exercise.

And suddenly...
it felt better.
It felt stronger.

FROM 70 POUNDS TO 130 POUNDS

One of the movement patterns we worked on with me was rotation.

I started around 70 pounds.

During the process...
I progressed to around 130 pounds.

Now, I'm not new to strength training.
I've lifted weights most of my life.

So the interesting part wasn't simply:
Scott lifted more weight.

It was what happened between the sets.

There were times when my brain was telling me:
YOU'RE DONE.
That's enough.

Then we'd retest.

And there was still more available.

So I'd do another set.
Then another.

And I'm thinking:
Where the hell is this coming from?

I experienced something similar with hip flexion and trunk flexion.

Those have always been stubborn areas for me.

There were times when I thought I was finished.
But after reassessing, there was still more available.

By the time we were done, I was feeling areas through my hips...
my spine...
and even my feet...
differently than I had before.

Cool.

But here's the question that actually matters:
​WHO CARES?

DOES IT HELP ME PLAY GOLF?

That's where all of this has to come back for me.

I don't care if you can hang upside down from the ceiling...
balance on a BOSU ball...
or juggle kettlebells.

If it doesn't transfer to what you're trying to do...

who cares?

For me:
DOES IT HELP ME PLAY GOLF?

​That's where my experience with MAT43 got a lot more interesting

MY LEAD SIDE HAS ALWAYS BEEN A PROBLEM

My left side has always been one of the biggest problems in my golf swing.

I've struggled shifting into my lead side.
It feels like I hit a wall.

Instead of getting forward...
rotating...

and finishing through...
I hang back.

Then all kinds of crap starts happening.

I push the ball.
I come over the top.
I get stuck.

Eventually, I start building a golf swing around the fact that my body doesn't want to get left.

I've dealt with that for years.

​Then I went through the MAT43 weekend.

THEN I PLAYED GOLF

When I came home, I was tired.
Flights were delayed.
Life was waiting for me.
I jumped right back into everything.

But something was different.

I FELT REALLY GOOD.

Then I started swinging a golf club.

Suddenly...

I could feel myself moving into my lead side.

I wasn't forcing it.
I wasn't standing over the ball thinking:

GET LEFT.

My body just went there.
At first, everything started snapping left.

My body was getting somewhere in space it wasn't accustomed to getting.

My brain didn't know where I was.

Then later that week, I played golf with a couple clients.

And I started getting through the golf ball better than I can remember.

Normally, I'm around 250 to 260 yards off the tee.

That day I was pushing drives closer to 275, with some swings getting closer to 300.

But the number wasn't the part that interested me most.
IT FELT EASIER.

FEEL IS NOW REAL

You still need golf instruction.
You still need technique.

Timing.
Motor control.

You still have to know how to swing a golf club.

But if your body can move efficiently...

THE SWING SHOULD FEEL EASIER.

Then the swing becomes more about learning the skill.

Where does your body need to go?
What positions do you need to achieve?
How do you organize those movements to hit the golf ball?

But if your body can't access or control a position...
you have to find another route.
That's where compensations can start showing up.

Your golf instructor tells you:
"Get into your lead side."

And you're standing there thinking:

I'M TRYING!
Maybe you don't understand the instruction.

That's possible.

Or maybe your body doesn't have access to that position the way you think it does.

That's what was so interesting about my experience.
My body changed.

Suddenly my swing had another option.

Was it a perfect round?

NO.

But now I know what getting forward actually feels like.
Now I can practice it.

Now I can work on the motor control to make it more consistent.

​FEEL IS NOW REAL.

WHAT I'M SEEING WITH CLIENTS
Here's where this gets even more interesting.
I have a client with a pretty beat-up lower back.

He has multiple lumbar disc issues...
some narrowing...
bulging and herniated discs...

there's a lot going on back there.

When I work with him through traditional MAT, positionally he does pretty well.

His tests look good.
He feels good.
We can work through multiple patterns.

Then we started putting him through MAT43.

Once we added specific movement and load...

HE WAS WEAK.
Really weak.

Initially, even very light rotational loading was difficult.
We're talking around five pounds.

After two sessions, he progressed from around five pounds...
to 15...

and in some patterns closer to 20.

Someone might hear that and think:
Five pounds to 15 pounds? Who cares?

But to me...
THAT'S HUGE.

Why?
Because this was somebody who could test very stable through traditional MAT.

Positionally, things looked good.

But the second we added specific movement and load...
we uncovered another layer

POSITIONAL STRENGTH AND LOADED MOVEMENT ARE NOT THE SAME THING

This may be my biggest takeaway from working with this client.
Creating a muscular contraction in a position was one thing.

CONTROLLING FORCE THROUGH MOVEMENT WAS SOMETHING DIFFERENT.

And that helped me think differently about a question I'd been wrestling with.

Why could I get him testing well...
get him feeling good...
and then once life started putting load through his spine again...
his back would still bother him?

Maybe we weren't missing something.
Maybe we simply hadn't challenged his system in this particular way yet.

Now we can take that positional stability...
and start adding:

Movement.
Load.
Strength.

And when I ask him how he feels, he keeps telling me:

"I feel stronger."

That matters.

I can't change the structural history of his back.

I'm not going to erase degeneration or stenosis.

But we can work on building muscular strength and control around the movements his body has to handle every day.

If he becomes stronger...
more confident...
and more comfortable moving...
that's a big deal.

Traditional MAT showed me one piece of the puzzle.
MAT43 started showing me another.

THREE TAKEAWAYS

TAKEAWAY #1 — MOVEMENT DOESN'T AUTOMATICALLY MEAN CONTROL
Your body may be able to reach a position without having the same muscular ability to control that entire range.

TAKEAWAY #2 — ACTIVATION ISN'T THE FINISH LINE
Improving contraction matters.
But eventually that muscle needs to tolerate load...
produce force...
and get stronger.

TAKEAWAY #3 — THE WORKOUT SHOULD RESPOND TO THE BODY
MAT43 gives us another way to determine whether more work is appropriate... or whether enough is enough.

INTERESTED IN MAT43?

If you're already familiar with Muscle Activation Techniques...
you understand the importance of improving muscle function...
but you're interested in taking the next step and applying exercise, load, and strength through the process...

MAT43 may be a direction worth exploring.

Golf MATchanics is located in Glenview, Illinois, serving golfers throughout Chicago's North Shore.

SCHEDULE A CONSULTATION

​Let's have a conversation about what you're dealing with, what you're trying to accomplish, and whether MAT43 makes sense for you.