Exercise Physiologist/Licensed Physical Therapist Assistant/Certified Personal Trainer
Since I have a degree in "Exercise Physiology", I thought it was necessary to define this branch of science. I also want to take this time to summarize my philosophies on health and fitness.
Exercise Physiology is the discipline that study's the cellular changes that occur as a result of regular physical activity and how these changes impact one's health.
In the context of weight loss and muscle gain, which is the objective for most individuals, a comprehensive understanding of the physiology behind dieting, training and the adaptations that occur as a result is absolutely necessary if long term success is the goal.
My name is Michael Sylvester and I have been in the fitness industry since 1984. I started working out in 1979 and at that time I was heavily into bodybuilding . I herniated a disc in my lower back in 1983 and was forced to look at training from a different perspective. I realized that getting big muscles was only a small portion of being fit. In fact, I realized after my injury, how important proper training was for preventing back pain or any other pathological condition.
I recovered fully from my back pain and changed my career from a truck driver to a student. I wanted to know more about the body. Knowing how to get big was easy, at least for me at the time, but knowing how to train to prevent injury, promote proper posture, and improve athletic performance was of paramount importance to me. My goal was to train ALL individuals with varying goals, not just bodybuilders. So I went back to school and got my degree in Exercise Physiology at the University of Massachusetts.
The Professor on my left (Dr. Kyle McInnis) was one of the best professors I experienced at U-Mass. He really took his job seriously. He was passionate about simplifying complex scientific concepts without butchering physiology. He did an excellent job at it. He is a gifted educator. Since many individuals may not be familiar with exercise physiology, I have defined it below.
I also have an Associates degree in Physical Therapy. I felt it necessary to further my education in the area of orthopedics, since many clients that I've worked with and continue to work with have musculoskeletal problems that my exercise physiology degree is not equipped for.
As a result of this education, my clients goals are not only limited to body composition alterations (lose fat; increase muscle mass), but include individuals recovering from a CVA (stroke), and an array of orthopedic conditions including shoulder, knee and lower back pathologies.
In addition to having an academic background, I have been active in many sports and currently engage in activities that promote balance, strength, and core stability. I quit bodybuilding. I am not against it, I just find it's not a good fit for me at this point in my life.
All too often, individuals regard the goal of completing a particular exercise to be more important than what can be discovered about their own body and its capacities during the exercise. The mere act of hoisting weights up and down, devoid of the potential receptivity as to the subtle changes that occur in the body as a result of each repetition, is the antithesis of what I'm talking about. Rather than engaging the mind in an interactive process of resistance movements during exercise, the individual who is ignorant to this mind/body field connection will tend to disassociate him or herself from the activity and tolerate the exercise by distracting the mind
from the experience of muscular demand.
I have written a comprehensive article regarding my opinion on functional training. Click HERE to view it.
Over the years I have conducted a lot of lectures on weight management. I have also written a book on weight control. I have come to the conclusion that dieting is unnatural.
Click HERE to view the article I wrote on this topic.
Web site designed by Michael Sylvester & hosted at Homestead™
