Foam rolling is an essential part of any good muscle building / strength training program.  It must be done before, during or after your workout.  In fact, it should be done on your off days too to help get ready for the next workout or sporting event.

When it is time to get real, it is time to get real.

Nothing is more real than foam rolling.

I’m not talking about the white fluffy foam rollers, I’m talking about the black foam rollers or even a PVC pipe son.  The real stuff.  Just the right tools to get a brother’s soft-tissue right while bring a tear to your eye.

Nothing is tougher than fighting a dragon-man-beast with a wooden spear in full armor.

Foam Rolling 101

Foam rolling is an essential piece of every workout AND every off day when you don’t go to the gym.  You should be doing it everyday.

Why is Foam Rolling Important?

Excerpted from the ACS Manual (just one part of the AMD system)

• Improve ROM (and subsequently execution of movement patterns) of a joint by lengthening and flattening scar tissue, removing adhesions (remodeling fascia), reducing tension / tightness and neurological inefficiencies
• Use in conjunction with your static, dynamic, ballistic and PNF stretching protocols to improve muscle length, flexibility and mobility
• Improved recovery and diminishing the effect of DOMS
• Should be utilized along with other restorative soft-tissue therapies usually grouped as self-myofascial release (SMR): trigger point therapy (golf balls, tennis balls), trigger point therapy, active release technique (ART), the Stick

How Foam Rolling is Changing?

Recently I’ve been incorporating more flowing movements not only to our workout, but our pre-workout routine for not only my athletes, but for myself as well.  And it is paying off big time.  I can now full squat (after battling a knee injury from high school and a subsequent botched surgery for 20 years), jump, lunge and many other movements.

What we are doing is, in addition to our conventional foam rolling, using a small, dense medicine ball to roll on.

It is denser and has a more focused application to the massage (exactly like tennis ball and lacrosse ball applications).  But that is not the coolest thing!

Linear movements on a conventional foam roller now become flowing movements across your cross the body and multiple muscle groups and kinetic segments.  If we attack tension and inefficiencies at multiple angles across each joint.

This is very important because we don’t not absorb impact, decelerate or even accelerate linearly.  Our bodies act in 3D and we move treat them and improve the function of them in 3D.

Remember, slay the dragon don’t play with Barbies.

Smitty

Advanced Foam Rolling

Spread The Word
Smitty on Twitter Smitty on Facebook
Products

Resources

Smitty’s Bio Smitty’s Articles Smitty’s Videos Ask Smitty a Question

How to Build Muscle | Muscle Building Workouts | How to Lose Fat | Six Pack Abs | Build Muscle, Muscle Gaining Workouts | Build Muscle Membership SiteSimilar Posts:

• Great Tricep Finisher – Improve Pressing Power
• The Perfect Gold’s Gym Workout
• Think Thin!
• Fast 15 Minute Muscle Building Workout
• Exposing the Matrix

You Are Going to Get Injured.

Yes, you will.

Sooner or later, the choices you make in the weight room will lead to injury. A severe injury or something minor is in your future, trust me on that!!

But you have a choice and if you act on it, you will see immediate results.

And you must make it immediately! You must take action right now without hesitation!

Change your workout. Change it NOW!

Because I know what you’ve been doing.

DO NOT MISS THIS POST

You haven’t been warming up. You haven’t been doing full range of motion movements. You haven’t been raising your core temperature before touching ANY weights.

This stops now!

I am here to make your workouts better and make you feel better.

What does training do to your body?

The SAID Principle and The Principle of Progressive Overload is based upon the foundation of tension. The more tension, the more adaptation. Good or bad. You are constantly striving to create more tension and more time under tension (TUT).

Good adaptations include building muscle and strength (combination of increasing cross sectional area of the muscle fiber – sarcoplasmic hypertrophy AND an increase in the number of myosin/actin filaments (sarcomeres) inside the cell – myofibrillar hypertrophy ), improved neural efficiency, tendon / ligament density, greater work capacity, development of specific physiological qualities (dependent upon volume, load, speed, tempo, implement, application), and so on…

Bad adaptations include the consequences of the recovery from heavy and prolonged strength training. Shortening of soft-tissues, adhesions and inhibition in movement is increased dependent upon % of tension (vs. current capacity), restricted range of motion movements coupled with current mobility limitations.

What does this mean?

If you load up a ton of freaking weight, day in and day out, and only perform short range of motion movements, you’ll be walking like Frankenstein and get injured from tying your shoe and farting at the same time.

Solution? Comprehensive, systematic, consistent application of a thorough, complete and all-encompassing warm-up and mobility drills prior to and after your strength training sessions.

Think I’m lying? Think I don’t know what I’m talking about? Think you don’t have time?

Bullshit.

I have been applying these techniques this year with not only myself, but all of my athletes. We’ve gotten stronger and my chronic injuries and limitations have gone away.

Now, if your goal is to lift heavy, lift often and lift hard for a few years, then screw it – who needs mobility work. But if you want to lift for a lifetime, then you better start doing these movements.

NOW.

You don’t want to be like this dude.

Essential Hip Mobility Movements

I just posted a new video of some really good hip mobility movements. These will get your heart pumping, open up your hips, improve your flexibility and get you moving again quick.

But you have to do them on a consistent basis. I’m not just talking about before lower body day, I’m talking about all the time.

Remember the previous post I put up about hip mobility and knee rehab? It showed how to open up the hips and activate the glutes. How about the lower back rehab post? With each post we are learning more and more and building more comprehensive workouts.

Right now we are concentrating on hip mobility.

Hip Mobility Exercises in the Video

Glute Stretch into Cossack
Wall Squats
Hip Flexor Stretch (Back Leg Elevated)
Hip Flexor / Quad Stretch
Hip Flexor Stretch and Reach
Bulgarian Split Squats
Striders into Rotational Lunges
Striders into Seated Glute Stretch
Fire Hydrants
Downward Dog into Quad Squat
Cobra into Dynamic Plough
Dynamic Adductors – Level 1 (Narrow)
Dynamic Adductors – Level 2 (Wide)
Dynamic Adductors – Level 3 (Horizontal Squat)

The Essential Hip

Spread The Word
Smitty on Twitter Smitty on Facebook
Products

Resources

Smitty’s Bio Smitty’s Articles Smitty’s Videos Ask Smitty a Question

How to Build Muscle | Muscle Building Workouts | How to Lose Fat | Six Pack Abs | Build Muscle, Muscle Gaining Workouts | Build Muscle Membership SiteSimilar Posts:

• Essential Hip Mobility – How to Warm-up Correctly
• Cossack Squats with 60lbs of Chains
• Fast Five to Lower Back Health
• Damn My Knee Hurts
• Exposing the Matrix