Pete the Fireman pointed this out to me:
Foam Rolling
It's a simple and thorough foam rolling routine. Print this out, bring it to the gym, and grab one of those foam rollers and try it out. If you've been foam rolling for a while none of this will be new to you, but it's a nice one-page routine regardless.
You may also like these foam rolling resources:
Fix Your Body with a Foam Roller: The Basics
Perform Better: Self Myofascial Release Techniques
Getting stronger, fitter, and healthier by sticking to the basics. It's not rocket science, it's doing the simple stuff the right way. Strength-Basics updates every Monday, plus extra posts during the week.
Showing posts with label foam rolling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label foam rolling. Show all posts
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Monday, May 9, 2011
Book Review: Massage for Sports Performance
Massage for Sport Performance
by Michael McGillicuddy
Published 2011
180 pages
Massage for Sport Performance is an introduction to sports massage. The book seems primarily aimed at massage professionals looking to understand the specialty of sports massage. For example, the book explains different types of strokes and how to use them for sports massage, but doesn't go into very great detail on the basics of those stokes. If you don't already know how to use kneading vs. petrissage vs. stripping strokes, you won't learn how here. But you will learn why you use them, in what circumstances, when massaging an athlete to improve sports performance.
The book has 16 pages of introduction to sports massage, include what its for, the role of the trainer, the role of the athlete, and some terminology as well. It also has 13 pages on massage equipment, from towels and massage tables to room furnishings. It seems quite complete; the book is clearly aiming to be authoritative and thorough. This is followed by sections on massage for:
Preevent Massage (that's pre-event, the book omits the hyphen my brain and spellchecker both demand)
Postevent Massage
Stretching
Recovery Massage
The chapter on stretching is the most generally useful. The stretches are well-illustrated and are broken up by body parts, which good accompanying text to let you know how and when to use them. The book (nicely) recommends warming up prior to stretching, which is the currently accepted practice. The idea is that physically warmer muscles stretch more smoothly and easily, and thus benefit more from stretching. The other sections are excellent, well-illustrated, and so on - but are aimed at a massage professional. They might be very helpful to an amateur masseuse looking to help a close partner with specific issues, but the main aim is professionals.
Finally the book has sports specific massage, for running, football, basketball, soccer, baseball, golf, and tennis. The details of what massages are useful and why are interesting and well-detailed.
The book also comes with a DVD demonstrating much of the material within the book. None of the stretches are demonstrated, however, but all of the massage techniques are.
Rating:
Content: 4 out of 5. If you're a massage professional, this book seems to have enough to get you started on sports massage. If not, it's a little less useful.
Presentation:5 out of 5. Attractive pictures, easy to read text, useful charts, excellent organization and a complete index.
Overall: As a book of continuing education for massage therapists, this is an excellent book. For those who expect to receive sports massages and who want to know what it entails, this is also very useful. For general use by athletes and folks seeking to get into shape, the book is of limited value.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Article Review: Teach Them to Land First
Jason Nunn, CSCS just had an article published over on EliteFTS, called Teach Them to Land First.
It concerns plyometrics - specifically, explosive jumping and landing drills meant to improve your ability to generate power. These don't come up often in basic gym workout templates, but athletes use them frequently to improve their performance on the field. Jumping is a very simple way to incorporate speed and power into your workouts. The article addresses a less-frequently examined part of plyometrics: how to land!
The article covers aspects of poor landings, and what to do to address the weaknesses in an athlete that cause bad landings. Little will chew up your body more than plyometrics coupled with bad landings - the repetitive stress of coming down hard on weak or tight muscles can add up to injury quickly.
It's well worth the read.
The article covers a few subjects dear to this blog:
Plank Variations - the article refers to these as bridges*. There is variation that's new to me, the Side Bridge With Glute Activation. They feel quite different from the basic side bridge. They certainly force you to activate your glutes to drive the knee into the ground.
Proper Warmups - how to use foam rolling, band drills, and activation drills (also called dynamic warmups) to address tight muscles and weak muscles alike.
Simple explanatins - This is "Strength Basics" after all. The article draws on some very technical sources but keeps it simple. You don't need to be an expert to draw valuable lessons here about how to fix a bad landing.
If you're doing, coaching, or even considering any kind of jumping, read this article first.
* there is another "bridge" exercise out there, familiar to wrestlers, known as the wrestler's bridge or back bridge. I use "plank" for the non-neck exercise, but it's common to see the terms used interchangeably.
It concerns plyometrics - specifically, explosive jumping and landing drills meant to improve your ability to generate power. These don't come up often in basic gym workout templates, but athletes use them frequently to improve their performance on the field. Jumping is a very simple way to incorporate speed and power into your workouts. The article addresses a less-frequently examined part of plyometrics: how to land!
The article covers aspects of poor landings, and what to do to address the weaknesses in an athlete that cause bad landings. Little will chew up your body more than plyometrics coupled with bad landings - the repetitive stress of coming down hard on weak or tight muscles can add up to injury quickly.
It's well worth the read.
The article covers a few subjects dear to this blog:
Plank Variations - the article refers to these as bridges*. There is variation that's new to me, the Side Bridge With Glute Activation. They feel quite different from the basic side bridge. They certainly force you to activate your glutes to drive the knee into the ground.
Proper Warmups - how to use foam rolling, band drills, and activation drills (also called dynamic warmups) to address tight muscles and weak muscles alike.
Simple explanatins - This is "Strength Basics" after all. The article draws on some very technical sources but keeps it simple. You don't need to be an expert to draw valuable lessons here about how to fix a bad landing.
If you're doing, coaching, or even considering any kind of jumping, read this article first.
* there is another "bridge" exercise out there, familiar to wrestlers, known as the wrestler's bridge or back bridge. I use "plank" for the non-neck exercise, but it's common to see the terms used interchangeably.
Monday, January 5, 2009
Soft tissue work
One useful technique for warmup and for rehab alike is self-myofascial release. Sometimes also known as self-torture with a foam roller, lacrosse or tennis ball, or other implement. It hurts, but it hurts good like a strong massage. You feel tension and pain, but then it melts away into a general feeling of well-being and better movement.
How does it do this? You simply take a foam roller (a piece of foam 6" wide and either 1' or 3' long, possibly PVC-cored) and put your weight on it, allowing it to act as a masseuse. The pressure is said to help break up muscle adhesions, release tension, break up scar tissue, and "improve tissue quality." Unlike stretching, it doesn't attempt to lengthen a muscle and thus avoids the issue of subsequent muscle weakening - static stretching before exercising has proven to result in weaker muscles during the exercise! Foam rolling avoids this.
This video from Cressey Performance in Boston, Massachusetts, demonstrates a routine you can do with a lacrosse ball and a foam roller prior to working out. Or for general rehabilitation on off-days.
The video only demonstrates one side, you'd want to do both sides for each technique. That is a fairly complete roller/ball warmup.
Eric Cressey and Mike Robertson also co-authored an excellent article on T-Nation about self-myofascial release called "Feel Better for 10 Bucks." Link warning: T-Nation contains some NW/FS (not work/family safe) images.
The foam roller they use in the video appears to be a Perform Better Foam Roller Plus; I personally use an identical roller at home as well as at my gym (DeFranco's Training Systems in Wyckoff, New Jersey).
If you have never tried any self-myofascial release before, I would suggest giving it a try. It is painful but becomes less so as you do more of it. At least for myself, it has proven to be a useful tool for breaking up bruises and swelling, improving my range of motion, and helping release built-up muscular tension.
How does it do this? You simply take a foam roller (a piece of foam 6" wide and either 1' or 3' long, possibly PVC-cored) and put your weight on it, allowing it to act as a masseuse. The pressure is said to help break up muscle adhesions, release tension, break up scar tissue, and "improve tissue quality." Unlike stretching, it doesn't attempt to lengthen a muscle and thus avoids the issue of subsequent muscle weakening - static stretching before exercising has proven to result in weaker muscles during the exercise! Foam rolling avoids this.
This video from Cressey Performance in Boston, Massachusetts, demonstrates a routine you can do with a lacrosse ball and a foam roller prior to working out. Or for general rehabilitation on off-days.
The video only demonstrates one side, you'd want to do both sides for each technique. That is a fairly complete roller/ball warmup.
Eric Cressey and Mike Robertson also co-authored an excellent article on T-Nation about self-myofascial release called "Feel Better for 10 Bucks." Link warning: T-Nation contains some NW/FS (not work/family safe) images.
The foam roller they use in the video appears to be a Perform Better Foam Roller Plus; I personally use an identical roller at home as well as at my gym (DeFranco's Training Systems in Wyckoff, New Jersey).
If you have never tried any self-myofascial release before, I would suggest giving it a try. It is painful but becomes less so as you do more of it. At least for myself, it has proven to be a useful tool for breaking up bruises and swelling, improving my range of motion, and helping release built-up muscular tension.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
