Fitness Tip of the Week with Performance Tactical: Foam Rolling: In part 3 of our series, how to get started with your physical training, you will lean how and why a foam roller is quickly becoming one of the most beneficial pieces of gym equipment. You can find parts 1 and 2 on our Facebook page if you missed them. Foam rolling is fairly new to the strength and conditioning community, it has only been around for a little over 10 years now. This has led to some mystery surrounding foam rollers and how to use them, many of you may have never even heard of a foam roller before. Now that foam rollers are increasing in popularity you can find them in sports supply stores and even Wal-Mart. Foam rollers are used to target and break up tight muscle fascia. Fascia is a fibrous connective-like tissue surrounding muscles and groups of muscles. Many times tightness can form in the muscle fascia causing a decreased range-of-motion. This decreased range-of-motion can then lead to a decrease in physical performance and many times can ultimately lead to chronic pain and injuries. Using a foam roller correctly can keep your muscles and your body in peak condition and can help to minimize injury risk. The following link shows, in detail, how to do the more common foam rolling exercises. Disregard page 3 and beyond, these are balance exercises with the roller and are not pertinent to this article. performbetter/wcsstore/PerformBetter/catalog/assets/Excercisesheets/PDF/FoamRoller.pdf We know that LE has common injuries specific to the job. These common injury areas are the shoulders, knees, and low back. Knowing this, we can give you a starting point to help prevent chronic injuries, and in many cases, help restore correct joint range-of-motion following an injury. The following is a starting point for your foam rolling: Low Back – Many times low back injuries are the result of your hips lacking needed range-of-motion. This asks the low back to pick up the slack, which the low back is not designed to do. To combat this we recommend foam rolling your Piriformis/Glute Medius, Upper Hamstrings, Hamstrings, Hip Flexors and Quads. Shoulders – Many times tendonitis and impingement develop in the shoulders as a result of the shoulders being rounded forward. To help work on this we recommend foam rolling you Teres Minor/Lat. Knees – Many times your knees can become painful as a result of your hips and/or ankles lacking range-of-motion. To generate hip range-of-motion we recommend you foam roll your Piriformis/Glute Medius, Upper Hamstrings, Hamstrings, Hip Flexors and Quads. To generate ankle range-of-motion we recommend you foam roll your Gastroc/Soleus and your Peroneals. Sometimes your knee can become miss-aligned due to a tight Iliotibia Tract. We recommend foam rolling this area as well. Adding Foam Rolling to your training regimen can be a huge benefit. To get the most benefit, foam roll first thing to start your training session, then you can move into your dynamic warm up (this was discussed in article Part 2). Working in this order can help you to restore joint mobility and allow you to train in the best position possible. Remember, these are suggestions based on common issues we see, you may require a more specific program. Message us if you have questions.
Posted on: Tue, 10 Sep 2013 07:49:27 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015