About Todd

My journey with health and fitness began at a very early age. In sixth grade gym class, we had to do physical fitness testing - the basic sit-and-reach test, push-ups, sit-ups and pull-ups to name a few. I did okay in most of the exercises, until I got to the pull-ups. As I gripped the bar, in front of my 50 other classmates, all I could do was hang, I couldn’t even bend my elbows. Only myself and two other kids couldn’t do a pull-up, and of course the other kids laughed to our embarrassment. I went home very upset and told my mom I wanted a weight set. My journey had begun.

I learned how to lift weights from books, friends, coaches, and anyone bigger and stronger than I was. When I was sixteen, I injured myself, a spondylolisthesis of my L4 vertebrae. Basically, I broke the vertebrae. My back began hurting that day, and stayed painful for the next sixteen years. I was training for baseball at the time, and missed most of my sophomore season due to the injury, but I kept up my exercise program to get big, strong, and fast for baseball. Over the next two seasons, I got bigger and stronger, but also more injured and slower. During my senior year, I had one of the highest batting averages in Michigan, and was picked to play in the Detroit Free Press Dream Team All-Star game in Tiger Stadium. My dream of playing in Tiger Stadium came true. Scouts were everywhere from colleges and the Pros for this game. They were interested in me because of my size and ability to hit - until they saw me run. I had become so slow and injured, that only a couple small colleges showed interest. In sports, it is a common belief that a person is born with speed, and it cannot be taught. Turns out that is completely untrue and one of the many myths we’ve been told. Funny thing was I had always been one of the fastest kids on my teams until I started training to get faster and stronger.

After that game, my love for playing the sport was gone, not because I was passed over by scouts, but because my body failed me. I had trained my whole life to reach this moment, and blamed my poor genetics for my body’s failure. I had maxed out my potential in high school baseball.

At 20, I became a personal trainer. When I got my first client, I couldn’t believe someone was paying me to oversee their health and fitness. To this day, I consider this a sacred task. I studied everything I could get my hands on, and tried every exercise system there was, to help my clients achieve their health and fitness goals. But after years of training clients, (and myself), I wasn’t satisfied with the results.

Then I had an awakening.

At 31, I went to New York City for the first time. I was excited to explore, and planned to do as much sightseeing as I could in three days, but I didn’t get to see much. My back spasmed painfully, and I couldn’t walk a city block without stopping. I sat on a bench on a busy New York street watching people of all ages walking hurriedly past me. I thought of all the various pains in my body. I had plantar fasciitis in both feet, shin splints, patella tendonitis on my right knee, and bursitis on my left hip. My back constantly hurt, and would go out on me weekly. I had impingement in my right shoulder, and very limited range of motion in my neck that would lead to headaches. As I sat on the bench in pain, I saw a man probably in his 60’s walking briskly. He stopped on a dime, bent down to tie his shoe, got back up and continued walking with out missing a beat. I thought to myself, “How did he do that so effortlessly? I hate tying my shoes, it hurts!”

All I could think was, “I’m a fitness professional, I’ve been exercising my entire life, and I’m one of the least healthy people on this street. I’m chronically injured. I’m not healthy or fit.” I went home and called one of my fellow trainers, only to find that he was in the hospital. He had a patella tendon rupture. His knee cap popped off and was resting on the side of his thigh, obviously a very serious injury. How could this happen? He was a fitness professional too, and had been exercising his whole life.

I looked at my staff of 22 personal trainers, and every one of them had chronic injuries. They were having surgeries on their shoulders, knees, and backs, and this was seen as a normal part of being active. Just like our clients, none of us were getting the results promised; we were getting the opposite. All the members at our health club who exercised daily, weren’t looking or feeling better. They were feeling worse, and blaming it on aging, genetics or their own lack of effort. 

The lightbulb came on. I realized that we are not to blame for failing to achieve our health and fitness goals; it is the fitness protocol we have been following, that has failed us. The growing fitness industry of the past 40+ years, has proven that it does not provide health or fitness. I began doing extensive research to find out where this protocol for exercise originated. I found that it was randomly created, with no facts to back any of it up!

I had another moment of enlightenment when I began working with a client who had multiple sclerosis, a neurological disorder. In my attempt to help him, I did extensive research on the nervous system. What I found was amazing! The nervous system is responsible for every aspect of how our body functions. It is responsible for injuries or the ability to heal, for weakness or strength, for fast or slow metabolism. It is responsible for how you walk, sit, and stand; for how you move your body. How your body moves determines how your body looks; muscular or slack, good posture or bad.

I realized that the nervous system is the missing link in all the exercise and rehabilitation protocols people follow.

People are told to move their bodies with various activities, such as weight lifting, running, stretching, swimming, aerobics, yoga, Pilates, and anything else to elevate the heart rate. We’ve never been shown how to use the body properly, how to hold it in alignment while stimulating the nervous system and in turn, activating every muscle to work with the design of the body and gravity.

Your Neurological Environment™ is responsible for the health of your body. If you want to change your body, you need to change your Neurological Environment™. If you exercise with a negative Neurological Environment™, you’re reinforcing bad movement patterns, and speeding up the breakdown of your body.

Blank Slate Fitness™ was created to teach people the truth about the body’s amazing ability to heal itself. This training will show you how to create a positive Neurological Environment™ that will optimize your body’s potential.

It is based on the principles of:
− Osteopathic and chiropractic medicine, massage therapy, and acupuncture
− Ancient forms of exercise such as yoga, tai chi, and martial arts
− Current postural programs such as the Alexander Technique, Feldenkrais, and Egoscue

In addition, the system has been refined through the teachings of:
− Janet Travell (Myofascial Pain and Dysfunction)
− A.T. Still (Founder of Osteopathic Medicine)
− Richard Lieber (Skeletal Muscle Structure Function and Plasticity)
− Wolf Schamberger (The Malalignment Syndrome)
− A.C. Mandal (The Seated Man)
− Richard Restak (Mozart’s Brain and the Fighter Pilot, The New Brain).

Blank Slate Fitness™ has been developed from my collective knowledge of training clients, and through extensive research and hands-on experience comprised of more than 60,000 personal training sessions over 30 years. It is, and always will be, a work in progress.

“Time to start over”

Todd S. Yehl