USING NEUROSCIENCE TO AVOID INJURIES.

“Most runners have been there. The race goes well, but the knee starts screaming shortly after the finish. You try stretching, strengthening, and endless foam rolling. Nothing works.

When traditional paths to better health fail, some athletes are finding solutions to vexing injuries by trying neuromuscular therapies. These routines are thought to improve coordination, power, and reaction time by training the body and the mind to work better together—activating muscles that the brain is failing to reach.
It addresses muscles you have issues utilizing and bridges those gaps in your ability,” says Charles Lantz, a personal trainer and muscle activation technique (MAT) specialist in San Francisco. Specialists are certified through a MAT program developed by Greg Roskopf, a former strength and conditioning coach at Fresno State University and a personal trainer. For example, kinks in a nervous system can lead to glute muscles and hip flexors that don’t fire, which can result in that sore knee. It’s not the knee that’s the problem—it’s that the brain isn’t telling the glutes and hip flexors to work.”