Foam Rolling
Foam Rolling…….I strongly recommend this to improve the quality of your muscle tissue and recovery. I have been doing it ever since I went to Los Angeles to work at Gold’s Gym, Venice in the summer of 2008.
I saw one of the trainers doing it with some of his clients and was intrigued!
So, If you imagine that your muscles are like sausages you have the meat in the middle (your muscle fibers) and the skin on the outside (fascia).
Through this fascia a lot of your neural signals pass through and ultimately impact upon the way you move.
Often when we get areas in the muscle and fascia that are starved of oxygen (hypoxia) this will inhibit the neural pathways resulting in faulty movement patterns.
To stretch these muscles is simply not enough once this occurs. Imagine that I have a bunch of elastic bands tied together with knots in them, pulling at either end won’t do anything until I iron out the problem, these knots.
Foam rolling acts as a great self applied version of massage and can be done most days. I use it pre training with EVERY single personal training client that comes into our studio that’s how important I think it is.
I could go into the specifics of muscle activation and inhibition and how we use it to improve strength but for now I just wanted to shed a little light on it and how important I think it is and how useful we are finding it.
Here is a little video showing you how you can get it done.
Simple Foam Rolling Video
I haven’t put all of the exercises we use on there but just enough to give you an idea. If I only had one tool in my armory to help improve my clients movement I would choose this.
Hope this helps
Matt
p.s If you want one try your local independent sports shop first but if they don’t stock it here are a couple of links.
The Grid- This foam roller is excellent for ironing out those sore muscles and helping to maintain your flexibility.
This is the exact one that I use with all of my personal training clients at our studio. http://amzn.to/W5Pfu5
Or this one is a little less expensive but will wear slightly quicker. http://amzn.to/RFu2Hr
