Myofascial Release

You see them everywhere- in the gym, the physical therapist office, your friends apartment. If you’re a runner or athlete, you’re likely to have a variety of them in your home too- massage sticks, foam rollers, lacrosse balls and other self-massage tools. Many of us use these tools religiously to roll our muscles and achy body parts and lament that it “hurts so good”. But do you know why?

This practice of self-massage is actually called self-myofascial release. Myofascial is the connective tissue network that runs through your body. It wraps around your internal organs and muscles and holds it all into place. When this system is healthy, it distributes strain evenly so that you don’t end up excessively loading one part of your body and causing injury. Think of myofascial like a spider web. If one part of the web is broken or damaged, the web doesn’t fall down, Instead, strain or tension has to be distributed across the web differently to account for the weakened section. In other words, other parts of the web picks up the slack of the weekend section.

There are many benefits of self-myofascial release:

- Increase blood flow

- Improves muscular range of motion

- Reduce muscle soreness

- Maintains normal functional muscular length

- Encourages movement of you lymph- the lymph system relies on movement pressure to move the fluid.

Ultimately, this means that you’ll move better, recover faster, perform better and have less pain so that you can continue to be active and do what you love to do.