How important are foam rolling, stretching, massage and similar tools for injury prevention and how often should you use them?

Question

Matt Eiden · Answer

I really like foam rolling stretching. I haven't used Too Many of similar massage tools, but the way that I see it, as anything you can do to soften the tissue. So if you have a manual therapists, massage therapist a physical therapist, someone that can get in there. And kind of loosen up your tighter tissues to allow your kind of bones and joints to sit in the right positions to kind of get you to be where you need to be. That's great. If you don't then foam rolling and massage tools, and Stretching is really important. I think to soften your tissue to open up ranges of motion. And then obviously you have to activate and strengthen those ranges of motion, but I would say, daily, at least, before workouts, whenever you really have time if you're in school still, if you can do it first thing in the morning and then go about your day, if you can do it at the end of the day and open up your end ranges of motion, that's great too, but if you can do it before your workout, to kind of soften the tissue and get your alignment in a good position, Asian and then do some stretches to kind of open everything up, that might be limited on you. And then you can activate those tissues and then strengthen those tissues in those ranges of motion. I think that plays a major role in injury prevention. So if you can find a way to get soft tissue through a therapist or just by foam rolling, if you can find a way to stretch and open up ranges of motion great. And then you got to turn on and activate those muscles and those n ranges of motion and then strengthen those The joints through range of motion full range is emotion. I think that plays a big role in injury prevention, but if you're just using massage guns, or stretching its prime and I can play as big of a role. But if you can hit all of those kind of in that order at least once a day or a couple times a week or numerous times a day, you should be in a good position to prevent injuries.

Paul Edmondson · Answer

Jonas, super question. How important are foam rolling, stretching, massage, and similar tools for injury prevention? And how often should use them? So for me, foam rolling, massage, vibration products have a similar impact to the body. So the replenishment of hydration or hydrodynamics in and after bouts of exercise that can help speed up the recovery process. Because in that 48-hour window after a heavy bout of exercise, or high stress through exercise, then your dehydration of tissue puts you in a heightened situation, where potential risk or damage are high. So if you could help speed that recovery process up and do that on a daily basis and devote some of your time, 10 to 20 minutes per day if you have the time, would be advantageous to do that. Biggest thing you've mentioned for me is stretching. So looking at three dimensional stretching for primarily the joints, because when you look after the joints, the other tissue-- the other tissues of the body are automatically enhanced. So looking at mobility, stability, strength from a stretching perspective, so that you can access any and all situations. You can access more of your own tissue to accommodate to the training or sport demands that you're placing upon your body. And you have the necessary experience and robustness of your joints, connective tissues, and muscles, because you're impacting them on a daily basis through stretching. So I would be doing that on a daily basis. I hope that helps. Anything you need more clarity on, give me a shout.

Tim Crowley · Answer

How important our foam rolling stretching? Massage for injury prevention? How often should you use them? Well, I think some of the simple tools like foam rolling or using a stick and stretching should be used on a regular basis, hopefully on a daily basis. As part of your normal, you know, daily routine for warming up or recovery massage can be used on a, you know, semi-regular basis depending on on costin and budgetary restraints. But if you At that once a week that would often be beneficial, every couple weeks to really get in there work that. But I think it's also good, not only from an injury prevention standpoint but also from a recovery standpoint on a daily basis. So build this into your regular routines as part of your warm up before workouts or strength workouts or part of your post workout routine. So consistency and spending a few minutes using these tools can be very beneficial over the Long Haul. Hope this helps

Wendy McClure · Answer

How important is foam rolling and other techniques for injury prevention? Lots of good answers here as far as why, how when and what? So I thought I would share a few tools that I use with clients and get an understanding of foam rolling. I find that many clients have a hard time being compliant with flump foam rolling because it's very uncomfortable. So I start them with a softer roller. This was first introduced by Bye Sue, Hitman from the Melt method and her premise is mainly to hydrate. The faccia she says, don't fast, smash the faccia, meaning, you don't want it to be extremely painful seven out of ten. Maybe then I could tend to progress to a little bit harder roller, or in some spots that can handle a more intense rolling. Then we have the trigger point roller. Also, we have a vibrating ruler. Secondly, I have found, and I developed a mouth. To release program for the US ski team where they could take a small apparatus along with them when they travel. And I use this small therapy ball. It's called it's from football therapy ball. You can get it on Amazon. It actually comes in three sizes and you can roll all over the body. But particularly I love it for RO. Rolling the buttocks, rolling the glutes around the whole pelvis line, and then across piriformis Etc. And you find that for many people, we have triggered, Points in our glutes. That is a little bit more detailed to release than a foam roller. Last but not least, I love to have a ball for your foot to roll. I use the nabo so ball which has a texture to it that stimulates the nerves of the feet. So I hope that helps us far some practical applications and tools to use.

John Sinclair · Answer

Hey Jonas, thanks for the question. How important is foam rolling stretching massage and similar tools for injury prevention and how often should I use them? All right, so this is something I include in all of our movement prep and in all of our movement recovery or recovery from sport. So Paul did an excellent job of explaining the mechanism behind it. On you talk a little bit about when we use them and so for me, our prep, usually starts with a global circulation. So we Something that's going to be circulate fluids from a global standpoint. So think the whole body is as a whole then we go someplace a little bit more local. It might be specifically to a joint, a particular joint that I'm going to use in that training session and or in that sport primarily, I usually always go to the pelvis first. So I we do massage of and around the pelvis with a foam roller, or a technique called Osteo, fascial technique, which is brought to our good friend by the name of Ian, O'Dwyer out of Australia, So we do Osteo fascial technique to lubricate and create circulation changes and dynamic fluid changes in the body. And then from there, we use any other tools that help us access areas that we maybe can get to with a foam roller. So that becomes part of the circulation, part of the warm up. And it doesn't, that's not where the warm up ends, that's just where the warm-up starts. In terms of recovery. We want to restore and normalize the I'm after the training effect. So generally speaking, we don't do too much static stretching immediately upon the training session itself because our fight or flight response is still kind of high. So we would Reserve that for maybe an hour or so. After we might do some static stretching to help create the tensional balance back into the tissues based on the stresses that we provided it from us, moving around on the earth and on in whatever surface that we're playing on. So that's how How I do it and then we all do some gentle massage, usually, before bed to help again, create another hydration effect and circulatory effect. So that I'm setting my body up for a good night sleep.

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"How important are foam rolling, stretching, massage and similar tools for injury prevention and how often should you use them?"