Have you tried foam rolling to try and get rid of knots, sore, achy and tight muscles? “Digging” into the tissue hard, forcing your muscles and tissue to loosen the kinks?” You think this must be helping because it hurts, no pain, no gain. This cannot be further from the truth. What you are doing may be causing tissue damage or just not getting any benefit. In fact, if you force the tissue, your entire body will go into defense mode, causing tightness. This is counterproductive and may actually cause harm. It’s time to wake up into a new paradigm of self – care.
We’ve had many people come to our clinic and they would tell us they do foam rolling all the time and that their therapist gave them instructions how to foam roll. But, they are still teaching the old form of self – myofascial release with the foam roller. In addition, they’re still in pain or lacking mobility. Keep doing the same thing and expect different results just does not work. It is our experience that the old form of foam rolling or self – myofascial release clearly does not work.
Here is a self – myofascial release technique you can use next time you do self – treatment with a foam roller or any other self – care therapy tool. Instead of just rolling and forcing, find a tight, tender or sore spot. Then, wait patiently in that area for at least 5 minutes. This way you are slowly releasing or melting the tissue. This is called the piezoelectric effect. If you would like detailed instructions, check out our courses website here.