The 4-Hour Body_ An Uncommon Guide to Ra - Timothy Ferriss [130]
Experimenting with ART
Flash-forward to an overcast and dreary afternoon in New York City, December 2009.
Freezing rain was falling in sheets outside of the Peak Performance gym where 20 or so strength trainers, coaches, and I had been taking an all-day seminar on PIMST (Poliquin Instant Muscle Strengthening Technique), developed by professional and Olympic trainer Charles Poliquin. For each diagnostic and training exercise, we paired off with partners and tested range of motion. For the first exercise, we’d looked at both external and internal shoulder rotation (for the latter, imagine the motion of arm wrestling or pitching a baseball). My external rotation was excellent, but my internal rotation was so close to immobile that my partner thought I was joking: “Wow. You’re kidding, right?”
Unfortunately, I wasn’t kidding. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been able to touch most of my back. Reminded of this handicap and a bit demoralized, I approached Charles during a break to ask him for recommendations. He paused for a second and looked at me:
“Would you like me to fix it?”
I wasn’t sure how to answer.
“That would be incredible” was all I could get out. Charles led me to a massage table on one side of the gym and asked me to lie down. He gathered all of the students for a demonstration of removing adhesions and restrictions.
Quite the demonstration it was.
Though I was the weakest male in the entire group, the big boys and Westside-style powerlifters had more respect for me 20 minutes later. It was clearly the most painful thing they had seen in a long time. Poliquin, who’d used ART on his athletes under Mike Leahy for four years, had to use two hands: “You know it’s bad when I have to use two hands. I never have to use two hands.”
He had two 200-plus-pound assistants guiding my arms through movements as he applied enough pressure to put his fingers a good inch in between muscles that had either fused to bone or fused to adjacent antagonistic muscles. I felt like a Thanksgiving turkey.
The before-and-after photos below tell a more complete story.
Before treatment—the range of motion of a piñata. Notice Charles laughing.
During the treatment.
After treatment.
Charles estimated he’d need three or four more sessions to fix the restriction in both shoulders completely. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d helped resurrect shoulders:
“A few years ago, my good friend and IFBB professional bodybuilder Milos Sarcev called me out of the blue. He mentioned that he was scheduled to have arthroscopic surgery the following week for both of his shoulders. He was understandably upset. For one thing, the surgery would cost him about $18,000. Additionally, he’d have to undergo an extensive rehab program, and this would keep him from competing and earning an income for a long time. I told him to get his ass over to my office right away and see [Dr. Mike Leahy] before letting a surgeon anywhere near his shoulders.
“When Milos came to the office, he hadn’t trained in over four months because of the excruciating pain. Even lowering an unloaded Olympic bar (45 pounds) caused him to recoil in pain. However, after working on him [on adhesions around his subscapularis muscle] for just 45 minutes, Dr. Leahy told Milos to go to the gym and give his shoulders a trial run. Somewhat reluctantly, Milos allowed me to take him to the local World Gym. In total disbelief, he bench-pressed 315 pounds for two reps. Five days later, he did 6 reps with 315 pounds without feeling any pain!”
ART sessions are typically 5–15 minutes in length and cost $45–100 each. Most client injuries are treated in one to six sessions. Soft-tissue injuries eligible for ART treatment include rotator cuff impingement, tendinitis, low-back strain, ankle and wrist sprain, shin splints, hip flexor impingement,