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There are eight directions you can move into when the muscles of your body contract and shorten. Specifically in your lower body: forward, backward, turning left and right, twisting and untwisting. In your upper body: pulling down, pushing upward, lifting, lowering, hugging, striking back, pressing, and opening. These are called kinetic patterns. They are very helpful when analyzing movements in different sports or performances and therefore provide clues as to which muscles to strengthen and stretch.

While one muscle group on one side of your body is lengthening. the muscles on the other side are shortening. These pairs of muscles are called balancing muscles. For example, contracting and shortening the muscles on the back outer side (posterior lateral) of your lower body causes you to jump up into the air, while the balancing muscles on the front inside (anterior medial) of your lower body cause you to squat.

Each one of the 16 meridian muscle groups are associated with the health of a different type of tissue and body function.

Each of the 16 exercises reside in one of four worlds. The physical exercises center around the body and health, the thinking exercises improve knowing and understanding, the emotional exercises increase consciousness of looks and being, and the spiritual exercises boost awareness of energy and life.

See The Four Personality Groups on page 43 of The Genius of Flexibility for more information.

Physical Thinking Emotional Spiritual

Each of the 16 exercises reside in one of four worlds. The physical exercises center around the body and health, the thinking exercises improve knowing and understanding, the emotional exercises increase consciousness of looks and being, and the spiritual exercises boost awareness of energy and life.

See The Four Personality Groups on page 43 of The Genius of Flexibility for more information.

Anger / Love Fearless / Fearful Excited / Anxious Moral / Amoral

Each of the 16 exercises reside in one of four worlds. The physical exercises center around the body and health, the thinking exercises improve knowing and understanding, the emotional exercises increase consciousness of looks and being, and the spiritual exercises boost awareness of energy and life.

See The Four Personality Groups on page 43 of The Genius of Flexibility for more information.

Present Future Past Relative

Each of the 16 exercises reside in one of four worlds. The physical exercises center around the body and health, the thinking exercises improve knowing and understanding, the emotional exercises increase consciousness of looks and being, and the spiritual exercises boost awareness of energy and life.

See The Four Personality Groups on page 43 of The Genius of Flexibility for more information.

Awake / Asleep Clear / Confused Conscious / Unconscious Alive / Suffering

Each of the 16 exercises reside in one of four worlds. The physical exercises center around the body and health, the thinking exercises improve knowing and understanding, the emotional exercises increase consciousness of looks and being, and the spiritual exercises boost awareness of energy and life.

See The Four Personality Groups on page 43 of The Genius of Flexibility for more information.

Active Proactive Retroactive Reactive

Beginner Exercises

Exercises that anyone can do, especially people who are just learning to stretch or are new at Resistance Stretching.

Intermediate Exercises

These exercises are for you to try only after you've learned and can easily perform the beginner exercises.

Advanced Exercises

Exercises for people who can comfortably do the intermediate exercises and have learned to resist maximally when stretching.

In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), energy flows from one meridian muscle pathway to the next in a very specific order. In TCM this order is called the 'Energy Cycle'. This order is determined by the depth of the muscles in the body and begins with the muscles associated with the Gall Bladder, with the next always being it's balancing muscle group, in this case Liver, and then on through all the rest. The cycle always includes two lower body, then two upper body meridian muscle groups, and then repeats two more of each. Ultimately all 16 have been completed.

When you Resistance Flexibility train, the Energy Flow Series takes you through all sixteen muscle groups in a specific order. This order brings energy from one meridian muscle group and it's associated organ to the next.

Beginner Flow Series

Exercises that anyone can do, especially people who are just learning to stretch or are new at Resistance Stretching.

Intermediate Flow Series

These exercises are for you to try only after you've learned and can easily perform the beginner resistance exercises.

Advanced Flow Series

Exercises for people who can comfortably do the intermediate exercises and have learned to resist maximally when stretching.

There is a very important difference between the muscles on the front and inside of your body and the muscles on the back and outside of your body. In TCM, the muscles on the front and inside are called yin and the muscles on the back and outside are called yang. Accumulated dense fascia and scar tissue (ADFST) is characteristically only in the yang muscle groups, except when unusual trauma has occurred. More specifically, there are eight yang muscle meridians and eight yin muscles meridians. Yin is characterized by feminine principles — passive, expansive, leadership, cold, darkness, completion, submission, etc. while yang is characterized by masculine principles — active, contractive, hot, brightness, cooperative, hard, dominance, the sun, etc.

See Yin and Yang on page 52 of The Genius of Flexibility for more information.

Yin Yang

Using the yin/yang diagram, you can see that the muscles of the legs and arms can be represented schematically as circles when viewed from above. Note there are eight meridian muscle groups in your lower body and eight meridian muscle groups in your upper body. Each group encompasses a 45-degree arch, housing specific muscles within each circle and also sharing some muscles with the neighboring circles of meridian muscle groups.

See The Sixteen Muscle-Meridian Groups on page 63 of The Genius of Flexibility for more information.

There are a large number of muscles in your body. Is there a way to think about them or visualize them in a way that makes them easy to understand? Of course. Here’s how.

Think of your body as eight cylindrical tubes, four stacked on top of each other, or sixteen half tubes. In your lower and upper body, there are tubes on the front, back, outside, inside and on the four angles in between. Each of those eight cylindrical tubes contain muscles in groups that go from your feet into your trunk and head, or from your arms into your face or trunk. Each of these major muscle group is concomitant with one meridian in TCM.

See The Sixteen Muscle-Meridian Groups on page 63 of The Genius of Flexibility for more information.

Anterior Anterior Lateral Lateral Posterior Lateral Posterior Posterior Medial Medial Anterior Medial

Meridians affect every organ and physiological system, including immune, nervous, circulatory, endocrine, respiratory, skeletal, digestive, muscular, and lymphatic.

Regeneration, Rejuvenation, and Reversing of Premature Aging

It is commonly expressed that exercise can generally affect your physical well-being. But people that Resistance Flexibility train regularly report experiencing not just marvelous biomechanical upgrades, but also very specific physiological upgrades concomitant with training specific muscle groups.

Use the following list of potential physiological health problems to select which specific Resistance Flexibility exercises you wish to practice.

Better thinking, smarter everyday

It is commonly spoken that exercise can have general positive effect on your psychological state. But people that Resistance Flexibility train regularly report very specific psychological fitness upgrades from practicing specific types of Resistance Flexibility exercises. While you develop the high psychological traits, the low psychological traits dismantle simultaneously.

Use the following list of psychological traits to select which Resistance Flexibility exercises you wish to practice.

Good looking, good mood everyday

It is commonly known that exercise can have a general positive affect on your looks and emotional state. But people that Resistance Flexibility train regularly report that they experience very specific upgrades in their looks and emotional esteem.

Use the following list of emotional traits to select specific Resistance Flexibility exercises to practice.

Spiritual perspective everyday

It is commonly known that exercise can generally affect your energy levels. But the people that Resistance Flexibility train regularly report very specific energetic or spiritual improvements from practicing specific Resistance Flexibility exercises.

Use the following list of energetic or spiritual traits to select specific Resistance Flexibility exercises to practice.

Discover your genetic personality type to learn:

Your Balancing Meridian Muscle Group

Develop your balancing muscle group to develop your unconscious personality traits. A person initially only sees half of the pixels as they look at the world. The entire other half of reality can only be seen when the unconscious part of them is in full operation. Access to this second half is the balancing part of yourself.

Your Opposing Meridian Muscle Group

Develop your opposing muscle groups to learn how to "stay out of your own way," overcome obstacles, and stabilize your dominant personality type.

Your Completing Meridian Muscle Group

Develop your completing muscle group to learn what ways of being you need to embrace in order to complete goals.

Your Integration

Once you discover your type, you will also know what traits are associated with your physical, psychological, emotional, and spiritual ways of being. Develop each of these meridian muscle groups to develop yourself in each of the four worlds.

...and much more

The following are some great ways for you to 'fix' your broken body or avoid getting broken in the first place. An analogy may help here: if you invest money, you can gain or lose money, so when you work on your body, you can make gains or get into some trouble. Everyone does. It is best to exercise in order to dramatically reduce what can happen to you, but these suggestions can also help you fix whatever went wrong in most cases, more than you would imagine.

Here are some great ways to fix yourself just in case you get in trouble. Fixing always takes three times the work as preventive exercise, but the solutions offered here are very doable — and hey, everyone makes mistakes, so be easy on yourself for whatever happened.

This troubleshooting chart is organized by body parts and simply lists some of the most common problems that occur to everyone.

Principles to keep in mind always when trouble shooting:

1. The flexibility of any muscle is determined by the flexibility of it's balancing muscle group which is always located on the opposite side of your body.

2. The ability of a muscle to shorten is directly dependent on it's ability to lengthen. So if you want to strengthen a muscle, it must be flexible first in most cases.

3. Opposing muscle groups are at 90-degree angles to any muscle. These muscles govern the proper rotation of your bones when you are stretching. Make sure these opposing muscle groups are flexible and strong before intensely Resistance Flexibility training any muscle.

4. The problems listed in this chart do not include severe muscle pulls, bone fractures or breaks, or severe physical damage to your body. Injured muscles require exact analysis. Consult your qualified health care practitioner before beginning any and all exercises. Rumor has it that if your muscle is simply strained then ice works best first, and then moist heat.

See Treating Injuries on page 254 of The Genius of Flexibility for more information.