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Part I: The Elemental Adaptations of Gluing Energy – Just doing the Gluing Energy Process creates all kinds of preventive adaptations to the muscles before we ever pick up a weight. Opposing muscular aging requires an integrative blend of ongoing technique and monitoring. Here are the Preventables cultivated by the Gluing Energy Process itself:

No matter where the pain is located, our bodies are predisposed so that muscular problems will materialize in 8 specific places, the 8 crossroads. These locations are responsible for the majority of shock absorbtion, opposing gravity and movement in our body. By addressing trauma at these points, we can address the causes of muscular aging.

1. Acute Muscle Sonar
2. Muscle Versatility
3. Strength: Subtracion / Addition 
  
     
  Part II: The Special Cases of Strength 

The Special Cases of Strength are so named because these element of physical training take overwhelming precedent over all else. Unless the special cases are met and vigilantly maintained, physical development is greatly dragged and chronic injuries and pain stay chronic.

4. Connecting the Core
5. Bilaterality
  
     
  Part III: The Specialized Forms of Strength

6. Balance
7. Flexibility Released / Flexibility Cultivated 
8. Harnessing Quickness

   Part IV: The Finishing Touches
9. Smoothness
10. Style
  
     
 
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1. Acute Muscle Sonar
We cannot forget the critical role muscles play as sensory device. The brain and nervous are woven into the muscular creating one unit of assessment and action. Muscle sonar is The Ranks’ term for the relative signal strengths between muscle and mind.       

Using pressure testing, The Ranks System measures the FEEL of self-applied deep tissue work in the 8 Crossroads done throughout the workout to assess for areas vulnerability and losses of bilaterality

Acute Muscle Sonar means we practice tuning in what our muscles feel like. We use this skills to cultivate muscles as device to see, by feel, where we are in space greatly aiding balance
Acute Muscle Sonar also aids us with another Ranks dictum: when the brain does not find the muscles (i.e. when our balance or performance gets worse) we turn things around by allowing the muscles to find the brain 

   
 
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2. Muscle Versatility

Probably the most important competency muscles must possess to remain muscularly young in the Ranks system. Muscle versatility is not quite strength and not quite flexibility, but the ability to continuously transition smoothly between these two states. Our muscle versatility is based on the innate ability of muscles to change shapes – this ability is directly compromised by the amount of muscle trauma we possess in our 8 Crossroads

Our muscle versatility is our general state if readiness to act spontaneously in a changing situation. Muscle versatility, cultivated from the Gluing Energy Process is the source of safety from accidents and performance in sports
Muscle versatility is what we develop point by point within the 8 Crossroads in order to create collective muscle flexibility
Quickness – a vastly under-practiced aspect of staying muscularly young is built on a foundation of muscular versatility
Add a training hint 

   
 
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3a. Strength by Subtraction

Expressing strength is everything in the Ranks Muscular Youth system. Strength in The Ranks is defined as the force of muscle fiber movements amplified through our hydraulic core. So strength is not gained just by lifting more weight – strength is gained as soon as we get muscles moving again through the self-applied deep work of the Gluing Energy Process. In The Ranks,  Removing constrictions – the subtraction of muscle trauma – is the first critical step of strength gain

All Ranks training programs – for balance, for flexibility, and for lifting weights is done by combing strength by subtraction process with the strength by addition process

3b. Strength by Addition

Our singular great gift as human beings is our ability to direct, to some extent, the outcome of our biology. As biological creature, we possess the ability to adapt to stress – be it warmth, cold or workload. Strength by Addition is the basis of typical “exercise” – the addition of weights (extra gravity) and the addition of extra movement (rhythmic cardio-vascular work).

The application of extra stress in The Ranks is basically the same as other exercise programs. The key with The Ranks is that addition of stress is constantly monitored (Acute Muscle Sonar) and tempered with concurrent Strength by Subtraction to minimize and heal injury. The careful feeding of extra stress to the musculature is second basic ingredient of the Ranks program. Where the Ranks is different is the other areas where we apply the principals of Strength by Addition – Balance, Flexibility and Quickness.

   
 
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4. Connecting the Core

The “core” is a murky and greatly misunderstood concept on most circles – and for good reason! Look in any anatomy book and try to find the body part called “the core”. You can’t!  - and this is because there is not body part called THE CORE.! The core, you see, is just a ball of water in our middle framed by the “core muscles” – the diaphragm, the pelvic floor, the hip muscles and the abdominal muscles.

The core only comes into being when all of these core muscles are called upon to compress open their shared fluid temporarily becoming a semi-solid liquid fulcrum
The method of all-important “core strengthening” in the Ranks is focus on “Connecting the Core”. We all possess loads of latent core power waiting to be realized and insinuated into our activities
Here are some Connecting the Core hints: Breathing correctly is our first and most direct access to core power AND the Butt muscles of the hip, even more than the abdominals, and the key to the core’s power

   
 
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5. Bilaterality

Bilaterality is the second Special Case of Strength in The Ranks. One of the major ways The Ranks program opposes muscular aging is that it teaches the exercise process to also be the diagnostic process. The most important diagnostic and training objective in The Ranks is Bilaterality of the 8 Crossroads. The problems associated with aging are not so much about being weak or inflexible but in constantly walking around with LARGE DIFFERENCES in strength and balance between left and right.

Differing forces (lines of pull) on either side of the skeleton will keep us perpetually injury prone
Bilaterality is tested by assessing performance between left and right and testing difference in pressure sensitivity between left and right in same Crossroad. To be in The Ranks, you learn to be you best self-diagnostician as part of your physical training process. After age 29, the idea of dumb jock goes out the window. Constant monitoring of bilaterality is a must that takes smarts 
   
 
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6. Applying Balance

Muscular Aging offers perhaps not greater threat than compromised balance. Balance foremost is a refined form of strength. Balance is the application of the force of muscle fiver movement translated through our hydraulic core toward the specific end of keeping our own center of gravity pressing against (and therefore attached to) the ground. Our muscles do us no good unless we have a solid ground to attach ourselves to  - and this takes strength

Yes, the vestibular system attached to our ear canal senses our position in space and therefore monitors balance, but our muscles – particularly in the 8 Crossroads, are what we use and must build up to execute our balance
As a form of strength, balance in The Ranks is gained by combining Strength by Subtraction with Strength by Addition – we treat balance training like weight training by adding layers of balance to exercises to induce adaptation to better balance while removing the muscle trauma inhibiting balance
This means that to gain balance in a Ranks balance program, we use the Gluing Energy Process and measured addition of balance stresses such as first standing on one foot, and then staying on one foot as we lift the arms up and down overhead 

   
 
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7. Flexibility Released/Flexibility Cultivated

The Ranks trains flexibility quite differently by acknowledging the conflicting dual nature of the body’s tissue to both protect us and be malleable at the same time. Flexibility – unlike just being stretchy – the range over which our muscles can exert strength. It doesn’t how far we can reach if we can’t do anything once we get there….Flexibility in The Ranks is therefore treated as a Specialized Form of Strength

The key to Flexibility Development in the Ranks is seeing that the body has types of tissue (the muscle and the fascia) which have to be made flexible. The problem is that the 2 types of tissue behave differently and must be trained differently AT THE SAME TIME
Just straining for your toes won’t work – Your muscles are loaded with habits and reflexes that have to be released. Only then can we begin the process of lengthening our connective tissues via patience and controlled breathing
As a form of strength, flexibility is gained in The Ranks program using a combination of Strength by Subtraction (The Gluing Energy Process) and Strength by Addition – adaptation to added stress giving rise to the Ranks dictum of flexibility training: STRETCH SMALL – STRETCH BIG – STRETCH SMALL 

   
 
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8. Harnessing Quickness

A Ranks belief is that people aren’t as muscularly young as they are supposed to be because they exercise way too slowly. Everyone is quick in their nature – look at how quick you are when you touch something hot. When it comes to safety and performance/enjoyment of sports nothing tops quickness. Our nervous system moves quickly and is only slowed by obstacles the path. Quickness is doing without thinking.

So how are we to build a competency we only do when we are not thinking about it? How do we build spontaneity and harness quickness? We certainly don’t practice withdrawing our hand from a hot coil by purposely touching hot coils. The Quickness is already in us and we bring it out as we build the other competencies of strength – via Strength by Subtraction and Strength by Addition
Strength by Subtraction for Quickness – The Gluing Energy Process. By removing trauma from muscles, we first position ourselves to move quickly as we need to.
Strength by Addition for Quickness – Game playing build reflexes. Hand games such as dropping and catching and foot games for balance are built into the training program. In the Ranks we teach to Play it Safe. 

   
 
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9. Smoothness

The quickest path between 2 points? In the human musculo-skeletal system, that would be A ROTATION. Our muscular origin and insertion points design us to ROTATE through space – look at the movement of athletes and dancers turning and spinning.  Ranks training emphasizes reteaching the body to safely move swim-like through space.

Sidestreet: It is not just the exercise you, but the direction in which you perform the exercise that matters – to stay muscularly young and safe, we have become adept in the rotational planes of motionThe Ranks” most important leg exercise? The tranverse plane lunge where the hip learns to do everything it must to stay muscularly young – rotate out, flex, rotate in, and extend

Of course, when training all-important smoothness, The Ranks demands constant self-assessment and safety by combining strength by addition with the strength by subtraction

   
 
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10. Style

The Ranks is a staging area. The point of all the study and all the physical training is to now be yourself - all of yourself - the experience, the wisdom, the heart AND the liberated body to broadcast it all. What you do with your hard won liberation - your decisions, your choice - that is your style.

WORK. VOLUNTEER. LOVE...& KEEP ON BUILDING!!!

Style is doing what makes you happy.