Muscle Recruitment

Here's another important video from the Personal Defense Network. It's important if we're going to understand the human weapon system to understand the body, to understand the mechanical structures and how those structures interact with one another as best as possible. Let's talk about anatomy Rob, we've all seen the examples that Tony Blauer demonstrates with the extensors and flexors. What makes that really powerful is the fact that not only do extensors outnumber the flexors, the triceps versus the biceps, for example. But what makes that really powerful are reactions, like a crossed extensor reflex or a muscular recruitment. What happens in humans is that the muscles are fired because of the electricity going through the neurological system. And when there's a lot of electricity in that system, more muscles fire. And so what happens when we place ourselves into extension, and then we tighten the muscles in our back and move our back into extension and then move our legs into extension, what happens is, all of that muscular contraction increases. So what we're actually doing is multiplying the effect of the energy being thrown through the body because we're using a larger system of muscles when we use extensors? Absolutely. And the stimulus to that whole system is electrical and that stimulus fires more of those muscles, increases the contractility, and by doing that it increases the strength overall. For example, the other day I reached to get my 18-month-old daughter and she didn't want to go. And so she extended her hands, took this hand, and went on the outside of her arm and pushed my hand away and went into extension. She multiplied exponentially her strength as a small human weapon system by moving into extension. And what's interesting about that is that no one taught her how to do that. Right. Any time we can develop on intuitive skills, anytime we can develop on those natural instinctive recruitments, those natural instinctive ways to use our body efficiently, we're going to be able to train more efficiently and react quicker, react more efficiently in the middle of that fight. And that's, for people who've seen the Personal Defense Readiness video in this series, Of course, they're very familiar with Tony Blauer's system and Tony Blauer's concepts of recruiting those muscles and doing your extension, your greater than 90 position, using the outside of this arm to push and use all the muscles in the extension and use your skeletal system to support all that. How does that help us fight? I mean, talk to us a little bit about the science of how that actually helps us prepare to defend ourselves. Well, for example, with my daughter, what she did was she made herself much stronger in the face of a large adversary and the way she did that was with the muscle recruitment. And so someone who doesn't perceive themselves as strong can become very very strong with the muscular recruitment and intensifying what they're doing. Too often, strong is much like quick or easy. It's a subjective term and it's used, "Well, I'm not strong." "Well, I'm not strong in comparison to a lot of guys who are CrossFitting every day, or guys who were doing a lot of Olympic lifting," this and that, but compared to your 18 month old, well, in that case, I might be strong. And it really is all relative. And the idea is to be as strong as you can be, understanding anatomy, understanding your physiology, using good muscle recruitment concepts, and your extensors whenever possible. It's gonna make you stronger. Check out more videos just like this one at the Personal Defense Network.