health.groups.yahoo.com/group/RFST/

www.casapalmera.com/meridian.html



www.yogajournal.com/practice/209.cfm
Some yogis are already embracing this synthesis enthusiastically. At the Meridian Stretching Center in Boston, Massachusetts, Bob Cooley is developing and testing a computer program that can diagnose flexibility deficiencies and prescribe asanas. New clients at Cooley's stretching center are asked to assume 16 different yoga postures as Cooley records specific anatomical landmarks on their bodies with a digitizing wand, similar to the ones used in computer-aided drafting. These body-point readings are computed to make comparisons between the client and models of both maximum and average human flexibility. The computer program generates a report that benchmarks and guides the client's progress, spelling out any areas needing improvement and recommending specific asanas.
Cooley uses an amalgamation of what he sees as the best points of Eastern and Western knowledge, combining the classic yoga asana with techniques similar to PNF. (An eclectic experimenter, Cooley incorporates Western psychotherapeutic insights, the Enneagram, and Chinese meridian theory in his approach to yoga.).
If you're a yoga purist, you may not like the idea of a yoga potpourri that mixes new-fangled scientific insights with time-honed yoga practices. But "new and improved" has always been one of America's national mantras, and blending the best from Eastern experience-based wisdom and Western analytical science may be a principal contribution our country makes to the evolution of yoga.
Resources
Anatomy of Movement by Blandine Calais-Germain (Eastland Press, 1993).

March/April 2000
This article can be found online at www.yogajournal.com/practice/209_1.cfm

Tom Longo, Meridian Flexibility Director & Certified Instructor
Tom is certified in the Meridian Flexibility System a program of powerful stretching exercises designed to promote total physical and mental flexibility. He teaches Resistance Stretching™, a flexibility technique that involves forcefully contracting muscles in a stretch position. His education includes structural kinesiology, motor learning, Hatha yoga, Chinese Medicine, anatomy, physiology, personality theory, and nutrition.
Tom teaches Resistance Stretching classes and works with individual private clients in the San Francisco Bay area. He is expanding his private client base and conducting workshops for general audiences and focused groups of athletes.
Tom is the computer modeling specialist behind Bob Cooley’s research into computer analysis of human range of motion. His credentials include a Masters in Mechanical Engineering from MIT and over ten years of computer modeling experience at firms such as Andersen Consulting.



www.acuwebpage.com/

www.runtex.com/seminars/seminarinfo.asp?key=67

www3.lehigh.edu/News/news_story.asp?iNewsID=1647

Bob Cooley, BS
· Trainer for elite and Olympic athletes, and performers including Al Roker, Prince Albert, Allan Houston, Dara Torres, Misty Hyman, Charlie Ward, and Jayson Werth.
· Founder and Director, The Meridian Flexibility Center since 1974
· Author, The Genius of Flexibility, Simon and Schuster

Here are some more links to articles:

ABC News Article
Mercola Article

Here are a couple of video clips from "Lose 20 with Al". This was a segment on the Today Show where Al Roker was attempting to lose 20 pounds. His program consisited of a modified diet with help from a nutritionist and Resistance Flexibility and Strength Training with Bob Cooley, Steve Sierra, and Anne Tierney. He started losing a lot of weight, but then he went to Italy and broke his stretching program and diet by eating a bunch of food and drinking a lot of wine, and came back weighing as much as he did when he started.

Week One: Lose the Last 20 with Al

Week Three: Lose the Last 20 with Al


www.stretchworks.net - This is the West Coast center for RFST headed by Tom Longo. I learned a lot from him when I was first trained to teach Resistance Stretching. I also worked with Bjorn (www.trainingwithbjorn.com). Anne and Steve are my trainers up in New York (www.innovativebodysolutions.com)

Better Homes and Gardens - This article was written when the focus of Resistance Stretching was resisting isometrically in poses. The focus is now to resist while moving the muscle from where it is as short as possible to where it as long as possible.

Xpress Magazine Article on Bjorn

The Genius of Flexibility by Bob Cooley

ABC News Book Excerpt - The Genius of Flexibility

Outside Magazine Article

FLEXING FOR POWER
Olympic swimmer Dara Torres won five medals at the 2000 Summer Games after training with stretching guru Bob Cooley for just six months. His secret (detailed in his upcoming book, The Genius of Flexibility: Inside Stretching and Yoga) is RESISTENCE STRETCHING. Put simply, Cooley's method stretches a muscle by engaging it while simultaneously lengthening it, which leads to an overall relaxation of the muscle and a subsequent increase in flexibility. "The moment you make a muscle more flexible," he says, "you access your acceleration speed and power, and that means you are immediately faster." To see for yourself, try Cooley's take on the hamstring stretch, below.

(1) lie on your back, bring your left knee toward your chest, and contract your hamstring by bending your knee and pulling your heel down; while engaging your hamstring, slowly straighten your leg with your arms until (2) it is perpendicular to the floor; repeat ten times, then switch legs.

STLToday Article

Though he has a list of exercise credentials a mile long, Bob Cooley got his start in fitness via a horrible car accident. The crash left a friend dead and left him with some serious injuries.

After years of physical therapy, he was still suffering. But for some reason, he knew the key to getting better lay in stretching.

One day he figured out the key: "You must lengthen and contract (the muscles) at the same time when you stretch."

In fact, he says, the harder you contract a muscle when stretching - by pushing or squeezing some part of your body against the floor, a wall, yourself or someone else - the more your flexibility will improve.

Cooley lets you in on his secret in "The Genius of Flexibility," which features 16 steps that combine resistance stretching with yoga and Pilates-style
postures.

The book contains page after page of black-and-white photos of very flexible people doing a variety of moves.

Arrows on the photos explain the motion or finer points of the stretch, so they are easy to understand.

The stretches begin fairly easily - a side bend here, a toe touch there - but they progress to much more difficult positions.

A large portion of the book focuses on assisted stretching - using another person to help you get the most out of your stretch.

Though Cooley offers plenty of warnings, the potential for getting hurt here is very real. So if you decide to do these, take it easy.

He also focuses on the benefits of stretching as a way to prevent injuries and make you a more well-adjusted person.

Great Book reviews overall.
birthtime.info/yoga-b/free.php?in=us&asin=0743270878
I bought the book and love the system.


www.alroker.com/store_detail.cfm?product_id=17

ww4.lhj.com/lhj/story.jhtml?storyid=/tem...xappeal_01252002.xml

www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~kshieh/chmed/notes/cooley.pdf