By Alexander Germanis

William Shakespeare is credited with coining many of our modern idiomatic phrases. An extremely common one stems from the tragedy, Hamlet. Perceiving Hamlet must be secretly planning something despite his acts of insanity, the Lord Chamberlain Polonius remarks, “Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.”

From this line, we have derived the phrase, “there is method to the madness.”

Anyone who has ever tried their hardest to lose weight and could not figure out why their best efforts failed to yield results understands there is a definite madness inherent when it comes to slimming down.

Dr. Joseph Norris, founder of Method Sports Performance and a surgeon at McLean County Orthopedics, believes in bringing a method into the fight to lose weight, get in shape, or to improve one’s athletic performance.

For returning to an exercise regimen after an injury, for instance, Dr. Norris explains how routinely accepted the madness in exercise has been over the years. “It’s not understood by the general populace,” he begins, “that we have no legitimate scientific protocol for a return to play on almost any injury — especially ACLs, which is very common. We don’t know when to come back from them. We arbitrarily have chosen six months in the U.S, but it’s 12 months in Europe. How does that differ? No one knows. And the last study that was written on it was done in the 1970’s. Someone just chose a single-leg hop for distance [as the determining factor].”

Madness extends to other aspects of exercise as well. “This field is dominated by propaganda and hearsay,” Dr. Norris continues. “If P-90X is good, P-60X must be better. There’s this fad diet or that fad routine. Marketing should not drive how we perceive an exercise platform or routine; it should be driven by results and data.”

In the preceding articles in this series, the human body and all its intricacies were compared to distinct locks requiring equally unique keys in order to unlock. For that purpose, the metabolic fingerprint has been scientifically developed. A correlation of an individual’s heart rate range and their lactate range, the metabolic fingerprint is an individual’s optimal heart rate that person needs to maintain in order to burn the proper fuels.

Whether on a smartphone or as a wearable device, a personal mechanism is in the works to interpret an individual’s metabolic data in order to help them better control their workout and affect change. For now, however, the scientifically driven method of exercise will be a coach-driven model. “It will provide the instruction on how to exercise, with what programs, and it will also bring the science of the metabolic fingerprint to follow,” Dr. Norris explains. “Making sure that while you’re doing the correct programs, you’re doing them in the absolute optimal way.”

Optimization of one’s workout is, after all, the ideal way to eliminate the madness from one’s exercise routine. There is a question that plagues most people: Is all this hard work actually worth it? With the proper metabolic data, the answer to that question can now be changed from “only some of it is,” to a simple “yes.”

“This is not just for prime athletes trying to get division-one scholarships,” Dr. Norris iterates. “It’s for 30-somethings, 40-somethings, or 50-somethings who want to use the programming. But it’s also for the obese of any age who want to just have more method to the madness of approaching exercise and weight loss. Whatever gains you want to see, this will help you get there in a more scientific way.”


To learn more about how the metabolic fingerprint is going to be applied to the digital age, please read “Clockwork Precision in Athletics, Part 6” in next month’s issue of Healthy Cells Magazine. If you missed the previous articles in this series, you may read them online at HealthyCellsBN.com, or contact Cheryl at 309-664-2524.

Method Sports Performance, developed by Dr. Norris and Dr. Newcomer, will be opening in mid-August as part of the Integrated Center for Wellness. Metabolic testing will be available later this summer. Method Sports Performance will offer a science-based approach to improving the performance of athletes of all ages. For more information, you may visit their website www.themethoddifference.com, or contact Dr. Norris at [email protected] Back to Top