Roll Before You Workout? The Science Says Yes!

Rolling tissues before you engage in an exercise or movement practice improves your performance. Rolling excites your sensory system, which increases your motor control and creates more contraction of the muscles, which in turn creates more force output – more muscle tissues are recruited to do the work. Rolling also increases your range of motion and proprioception, which is your ability to feel or sense the movement within the deep tissue layers. In this video, Jill performs a basic squat to check-in with the action before rolling. She uses a Therapy Ball Plus to target 3 fascial hotspots in the hip. The first placement is above the greater trochanter of the femur bone. You can find the greater trochanter by placing your fingers right at the ‘hip bump’ area. This area targets the tissues of the gluteus medius and minimus. Using a chair, wall or the floor, place the ball in the soft tissue space and begin to Contract and Relax your glutes allowing the ball to embed into the tissues. Then nuzzle the ball in and around that area for 2 minutes. The next spot lies between your ischial tuberosity (sit bone) and coccyx (tail bone). Place the ball in the thick tissue known as the sacrotuberous ligament. Jill uses Sustained Compression and Pin and Mobilize techniques to refresh the tissues. The third position is the ‘high inner thigh’. Place the ball into the uppermost inner thigh between the pubic bone and lesser trochanter. The lesser trochanter is the insertion point for the psoas, the main hip flexor muscle. Jill uses the Contract Relax technique to help the ball burrow in the thick muscle mass, encouraging the adductor layers to soften so she can target the psoas insertion. Once you’ve rolled those three points on both sides for at least 2 minutes, it’s time to recheck your squat. Is your squat deeper? Can you feel more power as you rise? Learn more at http://www.tuneupfitness.com