Tag Archives: recovery

Say goodbye to sore muscles with foam rolling and a tennis ball

Posted on by

Rolling, or myofacial release is a simple therapy to help you stretch and get rid of knots in your muscles.

Should you be foam rolling?  If you’ve never noticed or heard of them, they are 3- foot long white or colored foam rolls, typically in gyms near the stretching area. And if you also noticed tennis balls being used by trainers and regulars, you might want to give them a try. Rolling, or myofacial release is a simple therapy to help you stretch and get rid of knots in your muscles. It relieves and releases adhesions within the fascia. Akin to massage and trigger -point therapy, the manual pressure of rolling rejuvenates hard working muscles and soft tissue. If your muscles hurt after a hard day of skiing, or have overuse patterns, myofascia-release helps stretch, increase blood blow and increase range of motion to muscle.

Fascia is the connective tissue that covers all muscle. Injury, inactivity, disease or inflammation contributes to a loss of elasticity, resulting in unwanted fibrous adhesions. In other words, tight, sore muscles. Physiotherapists or massage therapists typically spend about 45 percent of their time doing massage therapy on these areas to stretch tight muscles and fascia, loosen scar tissue, and relieve muscle spasms. The good news is that in as little as two minutes, foam or tennis ball rolling can enhance joint range of motion, which is important for healthy movement, particularly if you never stretch. 

1. First you roll 

Starting your training or competition with foam rolling helps get your muscles warmed up, as it improves your range of motion. Unlike static stretching at the beginning of a workout, which research shows can diminishes performance, foam rolling doesn’t have any drawbacks. In a recent study participants improved their range of motion significantly after foam rolling compared to static and dynamic stretching.

Begin by applying sustained pressure on a roller or ball with your body weight. You can roll any muscle, but hip flexors, hamstrings, calves, quadriceps, and the upper back are typically the tightest areas. Use your own body weight in varying positions. The sustained pressure helps isolate soft tissue areas and release fascial adhesions, similar to a deep massage. What’s more is that the friction between the fascia and the foam roller warms the fascia, making it more fluid and elastic. 

2. Stretch and strengthen afterwards

After spending a few minutes rolling, it is important to actively stretch the area you just rolled. Let’s say that you just finished rolling your calf muscle, because it’s tight from skiing. Getting up from the ground and performing a standing calf stretch will further stretch the muscles you just rolled, bringing it back to it’s resting length. Doing so, you’ve just helped fixed shortened, tight muscles into lengthened proper functioning muscles. The final step in a well-rounded corrective protocol would be to do some calf exercises, like standing heel raises, to strengthen all the calf muscles. 

3. Don’t run for the shower yet 

You might also consider using a roller or tennis ball after demanding exercise. All that hard work creates muscle damage. Recent studies showed participants improved range of motion in the knee joint and hips compared to control groups.

And lastly, there is evidence that foam rolling can also help you reduce fatigue post-exercise and possibly improve long-term performance.

Click on link to see tennis ball rolling –

https://www.instagram.com/p/BbmloUJnn73/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

As seen in

https://www.mtexpress.com/wood_river_journal/features/fitness-guru/article_8835b3e8-5f0a-11ea-936a-e7ba628a730c.html

Breakfast: Better with or without before training?

Posted on by
Does it matter if you skip breakfast before a workout?

When it comes to your morning training, does it matter if you skip breakfast? For some, the idea of food early in the morning isn’t appealing. Currently, one-fourth of U.S. adults feel that way, and skip breakfast. But are there benefits of working out before breakfast?

Research varies on the pros and cons of eating in the morning before resistance training (lifting weights). A recent study published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning concluded that skipping breakfast before resistance training impairs performance. The small study group of 16 trained men between the age of 23 and 27 had better results with a typical breakfast prior to squats and the bench press.

We, as humans, are hard-wired, in that eating affects the central clock in our brain. This clock controls circadian rhythms and impacts all aspects of metabolism, including how our organs function. An over-scheduled or chaotic day can certainly thwart our best intentions to eat, and to refuel to be our best.

Renowned sports nutritionist Nancy Clarke explains that skipping meals can disrupt normal biological rhythms. The result, she says, is erratic meal timing that can impact the development of cardiovascular disease, Type 2 diabetes and obesity. Athletes who frequently skimp breakfast often get hungry and then devour way too many calories of ice cream and cookies, she says. If this is a nightly habit, the body is poorly programmed to deal with an influx of sweets, and can pave the path to health issues. A good solution, she suggests, would be to eat part of your breakfast prior to training and enjoy the rest afterward.

In terms of weight, it doesn’t matter if you’re dividing your daily calories into one, three, six or nine meals. Calories still matter, and dividing them up throughout the day doesn’t change your body fatness. But, as noted before, it can make a difference in your blood sugar levels.

There is new research to support the old adage of breakfast being the most important meal of the day. A study of more than 4,000 middle-age adults found that those who ate breakfast were less likely to have artery-clogging plaque (atherosclerosis) than those who didn’t eat in the morning. Published in the 2017 Journal of the American College of Cardiology, the evidence supported the idea that breakfast eaters typically ate healthier overall and were less likely to be obese or to have high blood pressure, diabetes or unhealthy cholesterol levels. But even with those factors taken into account, skipping breakfast was still linked to a higher risk of atherosclerosis.

So the question remains about whether it’s sensible to skip breakfast before morning training. A new study published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism showed that men who performed exercise before breakfast burned double the amount of fat than the group who exercised after breakfast. While this didn’t have any effect on weight loss, it did dramatically increase their ability to respond to insulin.

In effect, exercising in an overnight-fasted state allowed their bodies to use more of the fat from their fat tissue and the fat within the muscle as a fuel. Though the study lasted only six weeks and excluded women, it showed that the muscle from the men who exercised before breakfast had greater increases in key proteins, specifically those involved in delivering glucose from the bloodstream to the muscles.

Everybody starts the day differently. Some people do better eating before a morning workout, while others do not. The choice is yours, so make it one that will energize you for this new day.

.https://www.mtexpress.com/wood_river_journal/features/fitness-guru/article_a0425aca-0188-11ea-9e5c-5f5b778f0f87.html

Meal Timing, Protein and Conditioning

Posted on by

If you compete or enjoy working out, eating right helps you train harder, delays the onset of muscle fatigue, and aids in recovery from a workout.

If you compete or simply enjoy working out, eating right helps you train harder, delays the onset of muscle fatigue and aids in recovering from a workout. Eating proper foods doesn’t have to be complicated or rigid, and certainly no one approach fits everyone. Your body needs carbohydrates, protein, fat, minerals and fluid to fuel it for exercise. Eating right helps your body adapt to workouts, improves body composition and strength, enhances concentration, helps maintain a healthy immune system and reduces the chance of injury. The timing of meals and snacks is equally important. At a recent American College of Sports Medicine meeting, Nanna Meyer, Ph.D., and dietician at the University of Colorado and United States Olympic Committee at Colorado Springs, told an audience, “Don’t bother lifting if you haven’t eaten breakfast.” Current research recommends Greek yogurt with some fruit and nuts, oatmeal cooked with milk, cereals or a carbohydrate sports bar pre-exercise, with an emphasis on protein, like yogurt, chocolate milk, recovery mix or a bar containing some protein as soon as possible after training.

Are you getting enough protein?

Recently, research has demonstrated that having some protein before and immediately post-workout results in greater strength gains and muscle repair. Nancy Rodriguez, Ph.D., R.D., director of sports nutrition programs at the University of Connecticut, notes that increased protein, greater than the dietary allowance but within the recommended range, helps reduce body fat, maintains muscle mass and increases satiety—all positive weight management outcomes. Post-workout, research suggests about 15-25 grams of protein, found in milk (eight grams of protein per cup), Greek yogurt (15-20 grams of protein per cup) or a carbohydrate/protein mix, for example.

We also snack a lot less if we get enough protein. According to Dr. Alison Gosby, in the online journal PLoSONE, “Humans have a particularly strong appetite for protein, and when the proportion of protein in the diet is low, this appetite can drive excess energy intake. Our findings have considerable implications for bodyweight management in the current nutritional environment, where foods rich in fat and carbohydrate are cheap, palatable and available to an extent unprecedented in our history.”

It’s always a good idea to talk to a registered dietician for your specific needs. For example, the Soya Granules by Fearn is recommended for those who are lactose-intolerant. Remember also that 15 minutes to an hour after a hard workout lasting more than an hour, nutrient-rich snacks help replace carbohydrates, sodium and potassium. Less time than that, if you’re watching your weight, water is a good choice. Whether you’re training hard, or just enjoy being active, make good food choices for optimal energy and improved performance.

Connie Aronson is an American College of Sports Medicine Health & Fitness specialist at the YMCA in Ketchum.