Holistic Lifestyle Coaching w/ Legendary Strength Coach Paul Chek

Paul Chek is an internationally-renowned expert in the fields of corrective and high-performance exercise kinesiology. For over 20 years, Chek’s unique, holistic health approach to treatment and education has transformed the lives of countless men and women through programs like the P~P~S Success Mastery Coaching Program.

Chek is licensed as a Holistic Health Practitioner (California) and is a Certified Neuromuscular Therapist and Clinical Exercise Specialist (ACE). He has also accrued three US patents for posture calibrating, hydrotherapy and equipment inventions, and has also designed several pieces of functional exercise equipment.

In 1995, Chek founded the C.H.E.K Institute (Corrective Holistic Exercise Kinesiology) to accommodate an ever-growing clientele and to train and certify future CHEK Practitioners. Not surprisingly, Chek is sought after as an international presenter and consultant for successful organizations like the Chicago Bulls, Australia’s Canberra Raiders, and the U.S. Air Force Academy. He has produced more than 50 videos, 6 books, and 16 advanced-level home study courses while regularly contributing to several publications and web sites, such as Mercola.com and Personal Training on the Net.

In this episode, we learn about Chek’s life and training philosophies, the last 4 doctors you’ll ever need, working in vs. working out, the 7 primary movements, and much more. Enjoy!

Interconnected Human Systems

Paul Chek is a systems man, who thinks of the body as a spider web, where everything is interconnected. Even though he didn’t graduate from high school, he taught himself a lot of complicated subjects, and had studied how human body systems work and affect others.

Over the years, Chek conducted a lot of what he calls “situational research” and realized all sorts of issues lead back to food, water, sleep, relationships, and over-exercising. He had identified common root causes for people’s problems and came up with a few ideas and philosophies: The Last 4 Doctors You’ll Ever Need, life’s 4 cycles, humans’ 7 primary movements, how we can connect to our deep true selves, and much more.

“A man is not really a man if he cannot connect to his feminine side.” — Paul Chek

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Most of us are disconnected from the earth — Most people live in their head, constantly looking at computer, phone, and TV screens. We’ve developed a culture that prides itself on stating facts, figures, and memorization.
Knowledge is just a collection of ideas and wisdom is the synthesis of the practice of those ideas —The majority of people on earth think they’re doing the right things, such as using certain supplements, but a lot of the time we spend so much time trading and using information, which gets us disconnected from our roots and our bodies, leading to wrong decision making.
If you have seen many doctors to fix your pain and it still hasn’t gone away, you are probably just treating symptoms rather than the problem — Mike got the most effective changes in his posture and mobility from body work, decompressing his organs and releasing emotional tension. Our trapped emotions lead to blockages, which make us sick.
When something is happening in your life which is unwanted, examine what’s going on in your life unconsciously — Don’t do things because you need to, else because you choose to.
Training out of insecurities vs. willingness to explore their potential — There will always be someone faster, stronger, or better than you, and it’s important to train out exploration of self-potential rather than winning only. That’s how you can live a healthy and happy life.
Working-in vs. working-out — Working-in is when you do an activity at low enough intensity and timed with breathing to harmonize your biological oscillators, which is your brain, heart, and solar plexus (gut). When you work-in, you generate more energy through breathing and movement than it costs to exercise, which means you create a surplus of energy. Working-out is when you spend more energy and resources than exercises returns, which is why you need to recover.
Compensating for low self-esteem — Men usually use athletics and power to compensate low sense of self-worth, whereas women use beauty.
If we aren’t connected to the depth of ourselves and our interest isn’t towards exploring ourselves for what we can be, then we get lost in needing to achieve stuff to get other people’s approval, recognition and love — It’s hard for people to grasp their heads around it, but lacking self-love and receiving only external sources of love halts our spiritual development. We can get stuck spiritually like children, who need mommy and daddy’s (or friends) approval to do stuff.
Humans’ 7 primary movement patterns — Squatting, lunging, bending, pushing, pulling, twisting and gait.