I’ve taken a lot of seminars, courses, conferences, symposiums, and more on exercise and nutrition. Forty six over the last 6 years, to be exact. That adds up to about $5000-$7000 per year. And while in some seminars, you pick up a golden nugget here and there, other seminars have a very large impact on my (and my staff’s) methodology. Fortunately, I’ve been to very few seminars/courses, etc. that I thought were a complete waste of time (probably only 2 or 3 out of the 46).

So which courses have had the largest impact on my methodology, and what did I learn? That’s what we’ll cover in this article.

Biosignature

Biosignature is the brainchild of Charles Poliquin. It’s the idea that where you store your body fat tells us about your hormonal profile. And by using low-tech calipers, we can infer a lot of information about a person’s hormones, symptoms, deficiencies, areas for improvement, etc.

Of all the courses I’ve ever taken, this one has probably had the largest impact on my methodology, and it’s translated into bi-weekly body fat measurements of our clients. I consider it a very large part for the reason behind our success with clients like Cliff, Oren, Mary, Lynn, and others.

I wrote a complete article about biosignature a while ago, so if you’d like to read the full elaboration on what it is, how we use it, etc., you can read it here.

Original source: here.

Trigenics

Trigenics is a neurological treatment system that resets the way the brain communicates with the body for increased strength and motion, and decreased pain.

Each muscle in Trigenics has a strength test, and a length test. If a muscle is weak, we manually strengthen it. If a muscle is short, we manually lengthen it. And in my experience, after the first session, 50% of the corrections hold indefinitely. After 5-6 sessions, about 75-85% of the corrections hold indefinitely.

How do I use this? Whenever a client has a long-standing injury, and they’ve done “everything else” (exercise, ultrasound, deep tissue, laser, etc.), and it’s gotten better, but not 100%, that’s when Trigenics comes in particularly handy.

The other way I use it is with my “keeners.” That is, clients who want to focus on prevention. By figuring out what’s weak and what’s short before an injury, you can predict what and where a person will get injured, and you can take measures to prevent those.

Trigenics is how we’ve helped clients like Stephanie with her knee.

To be fair, this isn’t a single seminar – I took 7 seminars in Trigenics.

Original source: here.

Bowen

This is another one that’s not just a single seminar. I actually took 11 seminars in Bowen.

What is it? This is one that I always have a hard time explaining. But the way I usually do it is like this: it’s a precise series of moves and pauses that send specific signals to the body.

Vague, I know, but it’s the best I have. The truth is that I’d like to compare it to something – acupuncture, massage, chiropractic – but I can’t. It’s not like any of those things.

So when do I use it? In various different cases: with different injuries, with digestive issues, and on one occasion, a woman with depression once came to me to use Bowen with that. After 3 sessions, she took herself off antidepressants. I didn’t tell her to (I’m not allowed to).

I’ve used it with clients like Wendy, for her adrenal fatigue, Sandra’s shoulder and rib, Adrian’s knee, and many other cases.

Original source: here.

Honourable Mention: Z-Health

Back in July, I took a seminar in Z-Health, which is the neurology of movement, strength training and pain. I wrote a complete article about it here.

It hasn’t yet had a huge impact on my methodology, but the potential is there. Basically, the July seminar was a “teaser” course. It showed us glimpses of the entire, 40-day curriculum. But this was a 3-day seminar, and you can’t stuff 40 days worth of material into 3. So in December, I’ll be taking the first 4-day seminar of the entire 10-seminar curriculum.

Although so far, it’s only had minor impacts on my methodology, I feel like with more courses, it may have larger impacts, so I’ve decided to part with around $2700 for this course. Stay tuned!

Original source: here.