Another part of elite athleticism is how well your muscles can relax and contract. This is a relationship of highs and lows. Muscles will only contract as much as they can relax.

A big thing I saw in myself and other muscle-driven athletes was the inability to relax. Muscles were so tense (chronically overly-contracted) from years of lifting and/or poor fascial fitness.

At "rest" (sleeping, laying, and even getting a massage) my muscles were still "holding on" unable to let go and relax. This holds back both your recovery and athleticism as certain muscles are unable to quickly relax and contract as other muscles operate inversely during movement (think quads and hamstring).

Interconnectedness

This ability to relax is indicative of much more than just athleticism. A good barometer of how well one can relax is sex (speaking to men here). If all your muscles are unable to relax and maintain a certain level of tension then usually you'll have quite poor stamina with the women.

I'll also mention here that with this work you'll begin to feel different. You'll become like I always say "built different". This is why the Natural has that swagger and internal confidence. They can literally feel the athleticism in their "bones" (fascia), and thus their ability to dominate.

Over this process, we are decreasing muscle tension and increasing fascial tension. This will increase your ability to relax and thus contract. Athletes who have muscles that can't relax are the Grinders who never seem to be able to recover and always are overcoming their fatigue with more "work" (essentially forcing the body to increase stress hormones to compensate which is very bad in the long run).

In the upcoming lessons, there will be information on strategies to increase relaxation along with the core Peak Harmony work.

An Important Nuance

During this process, you will become better in touch with your body and better able to sense what you're feeling. One of these instances is the idea of muscle burning vs fascial burning and along with that muscle tightness vs fascial fatigue.

The muscle tension we discussed above is more unconscious as opposed to segmented muscle tightness or fatigue is more direct.

Fascial burning will be a thin interconnected almost webby burning whereas muscle-burning will feel more isolated and segmented (i.e. the two quad heads vs arch, hamstrings, glutes, and abs). You want to notice what activities keep reinforcing muscle burning and what helps the fascial network do the work ( full sprints vs slow jog). Over time the ratio will keep moving towards fascial burning but be aware and act accordingly.

Now as you become more fascial-driven, you'll also notice a new type of deep fatigue, one I'll call fascial tension build-up or simply fascial fatigue. This can be where the quality of your ankle stiffness drops and the calves begin burning more or the posterior chain is really heavy.

This fascial fatigue in the posterior chain is where the stretching comes into play and increased rest periods. The muscle tightness we can use movement, heat, and somatics to help with.

Flexibility

First, we need to think about unconscious muscle tension which we can use somatics to deal with. Second you build fascial tension so muscles can relax and lengthen.

Strategies to Help Muscles Relax

• Increase Peak Harmony
• Lymphatic Epsom Salt hot baths
• Rolling fascial adhesions
• Somatic Pandiculations
• Deep belly breathing laying sprawled over a yoga ball (on your back)
• Control yourself during sexual relations and go slow as to help your body relax in response to heightened arousal. Arousal (not orgasm) strengthens the parasympathetic system.
  See Self-Mastery Lesson

another part of elite athleticism is how well your muscles can relax and contract. This is a relationship of highs and lows. Muscles will only contract as much as they can relax.

A big thing I saw in myself and other muscle-driven athletes was the inability to relax. Muscles were so tense (chronically overly-contracted) from years of lifting and/or poor fascial fitness.

at "rest" (sleeping, laying, and even getting a massage) my muscles were still "holding on" unable to let go and relax. This holds back both your recovery and athleticism as certain muscles are unable to quickly relax and contract as other muscles operate inversly during movement (think quads and hamstring).

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