Why Foam Rolling is essential to avoid injury Foam rolling is quickly becoming a staple in training programs worldwide and for good reason. From elite athletes to weekend warriors, you now see most people using a foam roller as part of their routine. Here at Top Coach, we always provide foam rollers and ask everyone to turn up five to ten minutes early to foam roll before their session. Foam rolling improves mobility, range of motion, quality of movement and offers an effective, inexpensive and convenient way to both reduce adhesion and scar tissue accumulation. Further, foam rolling eliminates whats already present on a daily basis while decreasing the tone of overactive muscles- ask any runner to foam roll their ITBS (side quads) and watch the expression on their face! Self-myofascial release (SMR) SMR using a foam roller is possible thanks to the principle known as autogenic inhibition. While you’ve probably never heard of your golgi tendon organ (GTO) before, it’s the key ingredient that makes foam rolling effective. The GTO is a mechanoreceptor found at the muscle-tendon junction; for lack of a better description, it tells us the level of tension within the muscle/tendon group. Golgi what? When tension increases to the point of high risk of injury (e.g., tendon rupture), the GTO stimulates muscle spindles to relax the muscle in question. This reflex relaxation is autogenic inhibition. The muscle contraction that precedes the passive stretch stimulates the GTO, which in turn causes relaxation that facilitates this passive stretch and allows for greater range of motion. With foam rolling, you can simulate this muscle tension, thus causing the GTO to relax the muscle. Essentially, you get many of the benefits of stretching and then some! Muscles need to not only be strong, but pliable as well. Regardless of whether youre a bodybuilder, strength athlete, or ordinary weekend warrior, its important to have strength and optimal function through a full range of motion. While stretching will improve the length of the muscle, SMR and massage work to adjust the tone of the muscle. Traditional stretching techniques simply cause transient increases in muscle length (assuming that we dont exceed the point of no return on the stress-strain curve, which will lead to unwanted deformities). SMR, on the other hand, offers these benefits and the breakdown of soft-tissue adhesions and scar tissue. Techniques These techniques are actually very simple to learn. Basically, you just use your body weight to sandwich the roller between the soft tissue to be released and the floor. Roll at a slow pace and actually stop and bear down on the tender spots (hot spots). Once the pain in these spots diminishes, roll the other areas. In order to increase the pressure on the soft tissue, simply apply more of your body weight to the roller. The simplest way to do this is by either moving from working both legs at once to one leg, or by stacking one of your legs on top of the other to increase the tension. As you get more comfortable with SMR, youll really want to be bearing down on the roller with most (if not all) of your body weight.
Posted on: Tue, 19 Nov 2013 05:18:10 +0000