Soft Tissue Work Journal

Inspired by some other members, I’ve decided that I’m going to start doing total-body soft tissue work daily. I’m sick of popping my neck every 2 minutes and I’m just fucking tired of all this nagging-ass joint pain.

So I’m doing something about it.

My past efforts have been spotty, but the nagging injuries and shitty ROM are getting to the point where I can’t stand it anymore, and it’s really holding my training back. I’m making some good progress, but I KNOW I could be making at least 25% better gains if my ROM and tissue quality were better.

Just for some starting info:

I can barely get to a 60 degree angle above horizontal when raising my arms up from my waist, my hip ROM is even worse, my sacrum pops all the time and…well I basically all around suck ass when it comes to ROM/flexibility and joint issues.

In addition to the soft tissue work I’ll be doing static stretching afterwards and more dynamic stretches directly before training, mostly the one from MM.

Well, I’m off to go do some foam rolling and trigger point work. I’ll post again tonight when I finish.

And if anyone wants to post advice or ideas in here, awesome. I’m willing to do anything to get rid of this pain.

Just rolled my legs. It’s getting late, so I’m going to get my last meal in and defer upper body work to tommorow.

Oh, and just a reminder: When you’re working/stretching your hip flexors, don’t forget your rectus femoris…he’s a motherfucker.

I swear to god I get a freakin’ endorphin rush from soft tissue work. My lower back feels amazing, also.

Tommorow night I’ll mostly be doing upper body work with a tennis ball. Chest, neck/traps and rotator cuff will be my main areas of focus.

Aight kids,

Did posterior neck muscles with a baseball/knobble, then stretched and did chin tucks afterwards.

Moved to thoracic extensions (these felt awesome), did some work on my pecs (this is one that’s cutting off circulation in my subclavian vein I think…I’m not sure if it’s a scalene or the pec minor, help?), and massaged and stretched my iliopsoas and rectus femoris.

I plan to do the same stuff tommorow, adding doing rotator cuff work (kind of forgot about that tonight) after pec work. I feel pretty awesome though. Time for bed.

-out

Good luck with that bro. I’m in the same boat as you. I neglected stretching (preventative measures) for years and now I’m paying for it. I bought a foam roller and that is helping quite a bit. I had my first ART treatment this morning to help with a shoulder pain I have had for the past two weeks. Per the doc. it’s an inpingment.

Should be better in a few sessions. Let me tell you though that that session hurt like hell. I had tears in my eyes on occasion. I feel bruised but hopefully can get back to my workouts tomorrow.

At least you sound like you are finally addressing your tighness issues. If you come up with any good rolling tips, let me know.

Mike

Tears in the eyes; I had those in my very first ART session as well. Now since I go in once a month my adhesion never get so big that its quite that bad.

I cannot stretch enough the importance of stretching and foam rolling the hip flexors. My Squat has been going up like crazy ever since I started strectching and rolling them out.

Does your ass joint hurt a lot?

[quote]wallstrt wrote:
Good luck with that bro. I’m in the same boat as you. I neglected stretching (preventative measures) for years and now I’m paying for it. I bought a foam roller and that is helping quite a bit. I had my first ART treatment this morning to help with a shoulder pain I have had for the past two weeks. Per the doc. it’s an inpingment.

Should be better in a few sessions. Let me tell you though that that session hurt like hell. I had tears in my eyes on occasion. I feel bruised but hopefully can get back to my workouts tomorrow.

At least you sound like you are finally addressing your tighness issues. If you come up with any good rolling tips, let me know.

Mike[/quote]

What I found that is awesome is really staying one hot spot for a while, and focusing on RELAXING. Take all of the tension out of the muscle. It multiplies the pain factor a few orders, but it pays dividends afterwards.

[quote]Edders wrote:
nagging-ass joint pain.

Does your ass joint hurt a lot?

[/quote]

Haha, yes.

Just did some pec minor/rotator cuff work, more iliopsoas work, thoracic extensions, and static lower back/hip stretches…to Bob Marley.

NOOOOOO WOMAN NO CRY

Anyways, stretching your hips is awesome cuz you feel (and look) an inch taller afterwards.

-out

Can you post what stretches you’re doing exactly?

[quote]siodine wrote:
Can you post what stretches you’re doing exactly?[/quote]

I’m doing quite a few different ones. The lower back one I did is the simplest one where you basically try to suck your own dick. But yeah, post which ones you wanna know about specifically and I’ll tell you.

Wow, haven’t updated this in a few days. That’s bad, although I did have a fun weekend if that’s any consolation. Sleepaway Camp is one of the funniest movies of all time.

My neck is giving me major shit today, so that’s my main area of focus. Levator work, some trap/scalene stretching, and some chink tucks I think will do the trick. Otherwise it’s gonna be pec minor work and lower back stretches. I’ll update again tonight as I like to do this stuff before I go to bed.

Wow, late update. Did all heads of the quads except for VMO, as well as iliopsoas. Did appropiate stretches for each muscle group (Lunges, Prone knee to ankle.)

I focused on letting my lower back flatten out and this helped take a lot of stress off of my back. Finished with some neck rolls and thoracic extensions.

Time to pass out.