This is Part Two of my interview with Paul Chek. In my review of Chek's latest book, How to Eat, Move and Be Healthy! I referred to it as "an all inclusive eating and exercising guide." Chek's book is the perfect companion to the Total Health Program as it holds the key to the other component of optimal health -- exercise.

Throughout the interview you will find that Chek's energy is both contagious and motivating as he talks about some of the highlights of his exercise program and includes personal stories from his own life.

Whether you are a professional athlete, stay-at-home mom, health practitioner or student and are looking for a customized diet and exercise program How to Eat, Move and Be Healthy! is an absolute must-read.

If you don't already own my cookbook you can save 25 percent when you purchase, "How to Eat, Move and Be Healthy" along with my latest book, Total Health Program. These two books work together effortlessly to give you the ultimate balance between your nutritional and exercise needs.

The exercise portion of your book is divided into four exercise categories. The first section, stretching, is recommended for everyone. What are the some of the negatives that could result from not stretching before exercising or playing a sport?

PC: The body can be likened to a very complex string instrument, like a piano for example. If you want to play a concerto (exercise) on a piano that is out of tune (muscle imbalance), no matter how much you play the piano, you will never play it "into tune." Therefore, if you are going to exercise, you should have completed the stretch tests in my book so you know which of your muscles (piano strings) are too tight and which are too loose.

By stretching only the tight muscles before exercising, you will bring the body back into normal muscle balance. This will immediately improve joint stability, which will in turn, improve strength in the body. This is because "you can't fire a canon from a canoe!" All of your joints are loaded with special receptors called mechanoreceptors that sense when there is too much compression, torsion or sheer on a joint.

When the nervous system feels the joint is at risk, it simply reduces the activation of any muscle crossing that joint complex, thus you become functionally weaker and reduce your chances of getting hurt. When you stretch the right muscles, the opposite happens in that your muscle balance and joint stability improve so the nervous system improves muscle recruitment and you become stronger, immediately. I've seen golfers add 20 yards to their drive in one stretching session, without exercising, because of this exact mechanism!

What have you found is the most common mistake/misconception when it comes to exercising? Is there a best/worse time of day to exercise?

PC: The most common mistake or misconception is that you have to make it hurt to get the job done. This is far from the truth. In fact, as I say to my patients, clients and students, "training to failure, is training to fail!" As I clearly show in my book, you must get healthy from the inside out.

The last thing you want to do is build bigger biceps with the nutrition and energy you should have been using to allow your liver to detoxify your body from soda pop or garbage processed foods, or toxic tap water and the like. There is, unfortunately, a lot of ignorance today in the health and exercise industries. This can be proven by the fact that in spite of having more health and medical professionals per capita than ever in history, we have more sports and orthopedic injuries in almost every single category ever recorded in history.

When you spend all of your time and energy and money studying disease, you get exactly what you look for. My book encourages people to do the opposite, which is to study those things that have consistently proven to be directly linked to health in those that apply the principles.

With regard to time of day, you will find that each of us is unique in our needs. For example, I'm a real morning guy. I wake up like a rooster and hit the ground running, yet seem to get sluggish physically as the sun sets. Therefore, I get my best lifting/exercise done in the first half of the day.

My wife is the opposite. There are a number of complex hormonal variables that can influence optimal time of exercise for an individual as well. For example, many people will find that hard exercise later in the evening (5 p.m. or later) makes it hard for them to get to sleep and they must stay up till late to wind down. Those with adrenal exhaustion often find the opposite. This happens because once your adrenals get fatigued enough, hard exercise will kick your cortisol levels up to normal. The result for these people is that they sleep much better and feel much better exercising in the late afternoon or evening.

While there are other variables to be considered, I don't think expressing them here would do anything for anyone but healthcare and exercise professionals and even then, a lot of training is required to implement the information correctly.

What would you recommend to former athletes with sports injuries such as osteoarthritis of the knees or people with health conditions such as scoliosis that are following your exercises? Any modifications or limitations and what are they?

PC: None other than this: "If it hurts, don't do it!" If you can't reduce the intensity or amplitude of movement of an exercise to get a therapeutic response, you should look for another one in my book that is at the same level of intensity or complexity, which is easy because the exercises are coded.

Those with scoliosis who do not have any pain should place emphasis on stretching the muscles on the concavity of any of their spinal curvatures or any shortened muscle before exercising. Those with pain and scoliosis should seek help from at least a CHEK Level I Practitioner or a trained musculoskeletal medicine professional.

On the flip side, is it possible for an athlete to overtrain or overdo it with the exercises?

PC: Not if you follow the directions in the book.

All of the exercises in this book are accompanied with very detailed "how to" illustrations. Several of the illustrations include workout tools such as the Swiss ball, an exercise mat, a foam roller, weights, body bar, etc ... What tools are essential to successfully complete your program?

PC: You will notice in the book that as the health and vitality of the reader improves, their level of conditioning also improves and therefore, the complexity of their program increases. Initially, you need only a small set of dumbbells and a Swiss Ball (Paul Chek's Duraball is the brand I use). Some exercises can be done with a stretch cord device as well.

It is my experience with my programs that once people are educated about exercise, eating well and have direction, they lose their fear of the gym. In fact, I've had a significant number of patients become CHEK Practitioners because when they went to the gym, the trainers were asking them so many questions about what they were doing, it really shocked them. They found out how much trainers make and realized it would be a big pay raise for them so they made the jump to a new profession. In fact, some of my very best CHEK Practitioners were first my patients!

Each of your exercises contain both written "how to" instructions and pictures on how to perform the exercises. Do you feel, on the whole, people are better visual learners?

PC: Yes, and research proves it. About 40 percent of people are visually dominant learners followed by auditory, kinesthetic and finally mathematical/logical (5 percent). Surprisingly, about 90-95 percent of the information imparted to students in Western school systems is mathematical/logic.

Now you have a better idea of why we have so many health, exercise and medical professionals with advanced degrees, yet they can't get themselves, nor their clients/patients healthy.

When you learn in the wrong format, the information doesn't stick with you. You cram for tests and then it's gone like the clouds in the sky. Philosophically speaking, the difference between an intellect and a wise man is that the wise man practices what he preaches. Even quantum physics today is showing that much of what the ancient wise men taught is correct. In fact, I was watching a program about the string theory and one of the mathematician-scientists said that he suspects that at the end of a long complex mathematical equation they expect to find a rishi sitting cross-legged one day.

Continued on Page 4