Self massage can help…
- Increase range of motion
- Increase tissue quality
- Reduce pain
- Decrease activity of tight or overly toned muscle or neuro-myofascial tissue in the body
- Increase elasticity of muscle, tendons, fascia, ligaments and joint structures
- Increase performance
- Maintain normal functional muscular length
- Increases oxygen and blood flow to skin and muscles
The videos below give you quick and simple self massage routines to follow at any time. I only recorded one side of the body to decrease recording time. Saying this do both sides, get evaluated, and work on the areas you need too most.
When to use self massage:
- Before your warm up
- After your workout
- On off days
- As a recovery tool
- In between sets
- Before bed
- When your feeling jacked up
- Anytime or anywhere.
Things to consider:
Your tolerance for external stimuli and tissue quality:
How sensitive you are shouldn’t be overlooked before you start performing soft tissue manipulation. If you have never experienced any self massage you may want to start with something that contains a little bit more surface area or that’s softer and less dense.
For beginners: I recommend the perform better elite black foam roller here.
For intermediate users: I recommend the grid here.
For advanced users: I recommend the rumble rollers here.
Once you feel less “jacked up, knotted up, and uncomfortable” you can even take it a bit further to get more specific with a lax ball, a t-spine ball (two tennis or lacrosse balls taped together) index knobbers, theracanes, baseballs, etc. This will help when your tissue quality improves and you build up a tolerance to the more delicate tissue manipulation.
What I performed in the video is listed below on paper:
With the roller: Glutes, Hamstrings, Quad, Adductors, Lat, Pec, Erectors, T Spine
With the lax ball: Achilles, Calf, Hip Flexor, Rotator Cuffs, Feet, Hands
In sum:
- Perform both videos above. It should take 5-10 minutes.
- Start by rolling on the recommended areas, using your body weight to control the pressure.
- Hit both sides of the body.
If you have more questions comment below. If it seems to help, roll out.
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