My Secret Weapon...

One of the most crucial people on my bodybuilding support team is a skilled chiro/ART/SASTM practitioner. This individual is priceless when faced with rehabilitating an acute or chronic injury or avoiding a potential future injury (and if you train hard and long enough, you will get injured).

I've had extensive work done on my rotator cuffs, forearms, low back, hamstrings, and chest in the past. Now I'm adding calves to the list.

Strangely, over the past several years the interior heads of both my calves have slowly atrophied. I haven't had any acute injury that I know of, yet they have significantly shrunken and become much weaker over time. I was truly at a loss of an explanation and was getting pretty depressed about it; my calves were a weak point already - now they were becoming non-existant!

Out of desperation I described the situation to Dr. Skopp (see my YouTube clip for more detail) of Alexandria VA (www.skoppchiro.com) and we started working on my calves a few weeks ago. He found tons of grizzly scar tissue and believe it or not, after several treatments my calves have already begun to see improvements. We theorized that the scar tissue was likely impeding the nerve signal to the muscle, resulting in a gradual atrophy.

I've started working them in the gym, but because my outer heads are so much stronger, I have to really concentrate to feel the inner heads working. It'll probably be a while, but we hope that in time, they will return to their normal state.

None of this would have been possible without Dr. Skopp so I really need to thank him for his expertise and skill. Without him I probably would be walking directly on my tibia and fibula in another year or two. LOL. Seriously though - he's been invaluable to my physique and training. Thanks Dr. Skopp if you ever read this! If any of you have the opportunity to work with him or someone else similarly skilled in the areas I mentioned, I highly recommend it - you can thank me later!!!