Recovery Month, Week 3: Stop With the Foam Rolling
June 21, 2022 | Words by Gabe Yanez
Recovery Month, Week 3
We’re officially past the halfway point for Recovery Month! Before we get to today’s topic, here’s your weekly reminder that no matter what your specific fitness goals may be, you need to focus on recovery.
If you missed any of the past write-ups this month, you can find them all on the NCFIT Edit by clicking the links below.
This is why we’re dedicating the entire month of June to breaking down four different topics that will help you recover better so you can reach your goals that much faster.
If you missed last week’s write-up, you can find it on the NCFIT blog by clicking the link below:
Finally, for today’s topic, we have a guest piece written by the one and only Dr. Kelly Starrett.
Stop Calling It Foam Rolling!
Know what’s cool about foam rolling? Nothing. That’s why it’s time to throw that old-school, pool-noodle phrase away.
What if I told you that you could decrease your recovery time between training sessions? Or that you could quickly make a painful tissue feel better? Or heck, even improve your ability to achieve positions you use while training more easily? Well, that isn’t foam rolling. Please let me introduce you instead to soft tissue mobilization.
Soft tissue mobilization is a set of techniques that allow for non-threatening input to your body’s soft tissues. The net result can be effects like increased blood flow, desensitization of painful areas, decreased stiffness, enhanced CNS down-regulation, and improved range of motion. If you haven’t had success in the past rolling around on a foam tube, chances are you may have been missing some essential pieces of the puzzle.
The best way to understand the power of what I’m talking about is to experience it. So, skim the rules below, but jump into the guided recovery videos.
You can make massive progress and feel much better with as little as 10 minutes a day.
Try mobilizing in the evening when you have nothing going on. Keep your soft tissue tools by the couch!
To keep from going too deep, you should always be able to take a full breath in and out while working.
Maintain your brain’s connection to your tissues. You should be able to actively contract the areas you’re working.
Mobilize side-to-side instead of rolling up and down. This gives you different tissue input angles and addresses a tissue region.
If it feels good to press on an area, keep doing it until that feeling goes away.
If you’re working on a painful area, keep at it until it starts to feel better.
If you find something that you can’t breathe into or contract into: Take a big 4-second inhale, contract on the roller/ball for 4 seconds, followed by a long 8-second exhale as you relax the tissue. Repeat 2-3 times.
Don’t try to cover too much territory. Work on a single side, body part, or muscle group for 5 minutes max.
Try to tie your mobility practice into your real-world experience. If your calves are sore, for example, start there.
If an area hurts, work on the tissues above and below that area! For example, if your knee hurts, work on your calves and quads.
Not all your body can be mobilized with a roller. You may need a ball.
Trust yourself!
If it feels sketchy, it's sketchy.
If you’re looking for more information about addressing painful tissues, enhancing your recovery, or improving your position, drop into thereadystate.com for more.
— Dr. Kelly Starrett
@thereadystate
One Thing to Try This Week
Your goal this week is to put Dr. Kelly Starrett’s advice into practice with one of these two guided recovery videos.
If you have a little extra time to spare, here’s a 30-minute follow-along video that will guide you through some soft tissue mobilization work that will have you feeling your best.
If you have a busy week, here’s a 10-minute version that you can squeeze into your day.
Commit to one of these two guided mobilizations at least three times this week. We all have the time to do them, we just have to make them a priority.
ONE THING TO DO THIS WEEK
We all know someone that could use a little advice on how to recover better, so forward this email to that friend and they will surely thank you later.
You can also send them directly to THIS LINK or, even better, sign up for them if you know their email address.
