A recent experience on Global TV (you can view the 3-minute segment here) made me realize I need to get better at explaining the New Element Training (NET) method more succinctly. (Admittedly, I had understood I would be given a segment twice as long and that’s what I had planned for, but still …).
For me, and for many of our long-term clients, the NET approach has transformed the way we approach fitness and keeping healthy generally – physically, certainly, but even mentally. Explaining it properly takes more than a soundbite!
Hopefully, Global TV will invite me back for a longer segment and I can structure the explanation along the following lines:
1. Equipment / tools for getting fit:
If you’ve experienced the usual gym offering, consider what that is like. For example, a perk that comes with my daughter’s daycare at a community centre is a free gym membership for the parents. For research purposes, I have been using their ‘state of the art’ gym, which includes free weights.
The first thing I noticed was how hard free weights are on the joints, which felt tight for the following couple of days. This aligns with my clients’ experiences with conventional gyms, which usually involved some sort of muscle-joint pain. These pains disappeared after working with the New Element Training (NET) equipment for a few months. Once you get used to the quality of movement on the NET machines, you notice several things:
With free weights there is no adjustable resistance profile. The NET equipment gives you less resistance in the range of motion (ROM) where you are weaker and more resistance where you are stronger. With free weights, you are predominantly working only certain areas of your targeted muscles.
NET machines fit our joints like a glove, adjusting on multiple planes to insure proper muscle-joint movement. Only advanced trainees can approach a similar experience with free weights.
The NET equipment was designed in the mid-90s and has since been extensively used in Europe, Australia, and parts of the United States, with documented results. Unfortunately, it is not yet known in Canada, so education is our first priority.
2. The New Element Training Method
The New Element Training (NET) method involves slow, smooth and controlled movements where muscle tension is continuously increased until you can no longer move the weight while maintaining perfect form. Performing these movements correctly takes concentration, so we deliberately keep the gym environment distraction free (no music, television screens, etc.). Instead, we incorporate mindfulness cues during the training session, so your workout is ultra-efficient and also provides a mental break from the stress of your day.
Using the leg press machine
The approach of training to momentary muscular failure (MMF, where you can no longer move the weight using perfect form) is well researched: type it into the search bar at www.pubmed.gov to bring up dozens of academic papers demonstrating its effectiveness. Although working to MMF has been incorporated into some exercise modalities in the past few years, the NET machines and protocols are quite different from those used elsewhere. For one thing, they ensure the safety of muscles and joints when you are working at an intensity that will actually build muscle tissue.
Our approach is also highly efficient:
in the use of your time – only one or two 30-minute sessions per week are needed to achieve transformative results, and
in the effective use of your muscles to develop strength and muscle fibre growth: all muscle fibres are recruited by the NET machines and resistance is properly distributed throughout the range of motion.
To sum up, the New Element Training approach is a highly effective and efficient way to achieve your desired results. Not only that, our training protocols involving the mindful use of slow and controlled movements produce less force and is gentler on joints and ligaments, and is therefore much safer than conventional approaches to strength training.
3. Integrated Mindfulness
We live most of our lives “in our heads”: we are preoccupied with compulsively generated thoughts and emotions, which contribute to feelings of unease, anxiety and stress. This stress is mirrored in the body, creating physical unease, as well. Being able to step out of these whirling thoughts and focus entirely on sensations in the body is a powerful way to release stress, both mental and physical.
A significant benefit of the NET method is that it requires all of our mental attention and a focused physical effort, giving us a mental break while releasing accumulated stress and rebalancing muscular and joint alignment (misalignment is a common cause of chronic pain). Over time, this creates ease in the body, which, in a virtuous loop, also helps to relieve mental stress. Mindfulness cues received during physical training gradually spill over into other aspects of our daily lives, helping us to approach mental stressors with equanimity.
We call our physical training with integrated mindfulness “dynamic meditation.” Athletes call it “being in the zone.”
4. Rehabilitation
New Element Training protocols and equipment are powerful aids to rehabilitation. Our machines target specific muscles: e.g., rotator cuff, hips, upper back, neck, and lower back. For example, our therapeutic MedX Lumbar Extension machines have been clinically proven to help 8 out of 10 people with persistent lower back pain to achieve good to excellent results (good being a reduction in pain with improved functionality; excellent being complete relief from pain and regaining full functionality).
We also offer in-house physiotherapy services, where access to the NET therapeutic and strength-building machines during the treatment process is an obvious advantage.
5. Workout Environment
Our workout environment is clean and bright, quiet and distraction-free (no mirrors, monitors or music). Our clients describe it as a “feel good” workout space.
6.Results Oriented
NET trainees who consistently maintain good form and sufficient intensity (to produce a strong enough stimulus to promote muscle growth) get stronger from week to week. This has proven true for all our clients. Body composition also changes: strength training combined with appropriate eating habits results in a profound reduction of stored body fat.
NET training provably results in:
increased lean muscle tissue
increased strength and power
aerobic fitness to the same level as ‘cardio’ exercises
increased flexibility
stronger muscles, bones and joints which are less prone to injury
improved general health and therefore increased probability of living longer in a healthy state
When skeletal muscles contract, they produce hormone-like chemical messengers or myokines, generating exponentially more in relation to the size of the muscle mass being contracted and the intensity of the contraction. Myokines provide a molecular explanation for the extensive communication between muscle and other tissues in our body. The receptors of myokines are found in muscle, fat, liver, pancreas, bone, heart, immune and brain cells. Myokines are responsible for tissue regeneration and repair, maintenance of healthy bodily functioning, and cell signaling.
Our busy clients are able to fit in one or two 30-minute weekly sessions to achieve these results, and report they are doing things they haven’t done for years (or at all). They play sports they haven’t played since their youth or they do chin-ups (which many have never achieved before). Many have reduced medications taken for various lifestyle-related health ailments, including skeletal muscular related pain. They report feeling more confident, both physically and mentally; and this increased capacity for life allows them to enjoy life to the fullest.
