Eliminate This One Factor To Reduce Pain And Improve Performance

2023-07-28 5 min reading

After years of chronic lower back, shoulder, and neck pain, with little to no lasting relief from physical therapy, I knew I needed to find something to get to the root cause of my pain. In my desperate search for relief, I discovered new methods and a new, at least to me, approach toward properly training the body. What I had learned from years of studying traditional strength and conditioning and training clients was shattered as I discovered the biomechanical approach toward health and fitness. This focuses on locomotion as the primary movement function of human beings, and thus, should be prioritized and optimized. The primary actions of the body are walking, running, throwing, and moving forward in space. Optimizing for these actions will lead to better health, performance, and longevity. Conversely, I had always learned the best way to train was through squatting, pushing, pulling, and hinging, and to create maximal tension throughout the body in these moves, allowing no motion of the spine. Every exercise was to be done with maximal compression of the core and muscles to create stability, to allow for the best transference of strength. Don’t be confused, this method will allow you to produce high levels of force and improve strength. And it did serve me well for years. Until it didn’t. I was in pain after every workout, every BJJ session, when I woke up every morning, and ultimately, every day. Years of compressing the core and muscles left me, well…compressed.

The Effects Of Compression

The body needs freedom of movement, especially at the spine, the source of all human movement. If you want to go deeper, search the Spinal Engine theory to understand this biomechanical approach. Compressing the spine and muscles is necessary to create maximum force for something like a deadlift or bench press PR, which has its place in human performance and longevity. Strength is necessary, as are the adaptations to the bones and connective tissue we get from resistance training for durability and longevity. And even in locomotion, certain things needs to compress while others decompress to facilitate movement. But how often do you need to create maximal pressing tension in life or sport? And what are you doing to balance and relieve all of that compression? In most sports, and in life, your body needs to twist, turn, bend and rotate. It needs to change direction and transfer and receive force. Those movements come from a free and mobile spine, unhindered by compression. These are some of the negative effects of chronic compression:

Pain
Poor transference of force
Dehydration of fascia/tissues
Compromised breathing, which leads to poor recovery
Poor nerve transference
Restricted movement
Reduced athletic Performance
Decreased longevity (theory)

If fact, decompression will not only free up the nerve pathways for information to flow within the body, it will also improve the ability to transfer force, as it can then move freely through the muscular and fascial chains.

What Is Fascia?

In 2021 I dove hard into myofascial release. All of the new research I was studying was explaining that the body needs freedom from compression. When the fascia becomes constricted it tightens more than just the area where the constriction is. You see, fascia covers the entire body, from head to toe. Unlike the muscles that have finite beginning and end points, connecting to bones via ligaments and tendons, the fascia is one long web of tissue that connects everything. A constriction in one point of the fascia can effect the entire web, causing a negative effect up or downstream. Fascia is an incredible structure that acts as a network between the body and brain, linking everything. I realized how truly compressed I was when I started dedicating more than the rushed 30 seconds per muscle on a foam roller (sound familiar?), and committed to hour-long marathons on lacrosse balls and rollers. Much of my musculature/fascia was stiff, tight, and dehydrated. Prolonged pressure via lacrosse ball, Theracane, elbow, wine bottle, whatever, allows the fascia to relax and hydrate as fluid is pushed out and floods back into the area. The wild thing was that some of this tension could have been there for years, even decades. It could have been accumulated from much more than just compressing through weight training. Repetitive postural patterns, emotional responses, and even gravity all play a role in how tension sits within the system. And once this tension creeps in, if it’s not dissipated, it can become locked into your nervous system and literally become part of you and what you think feels normal. So, the first step in becoming decompressed is to roll it out.

Self-Myofascial Release

If you’ve never committed to serious self-myofascial release, and have a lifetime of exercising and stress to work out, it’s going to be a long process. The best method is to commit to 20 minutes every day and choose four body parts to focus on each session. Find the area in each part that’s the most painful and sit on that spot for five minutes. You can usually feel twitching and a physical release if you sit on a chronically tight area long enough. The next day, choose four more areas and repeat. For example, Day 1 20 mins Upper Legs and Pecs 5 mins - Left Quad 5 mins - Right Quad 5 mins - Left pec 5 mins - Right pec Day 2 20 mins Lower Legs and Lower Back 5 mins - right calf 5 mins - left calf 5 mins - right QL 5 mins - left QL How long you will need to spend on each area will lessen over time and depends on the amount of compression you currently have. I now spend an average of 2 mins on each area a few times a week. Some common areas of chronic tension in addition to the quads, calves, pecs and lower back are the hamstrings, above and below the IT band, TFL, glutes and lats. Free, unrestricted fascia will certainly add to your performance and health, but if you’re in chronic pain, self-myofascial release is an absolute must. This is step one of regaining your natural fluid movement ability, overcoming dysfunctional patterns, unlocking your performance potential, and improving your longevity. Step two involves using the power of your breath to further decompress your spine, pelvis, hips, and ribs. For now, get on that ball and hunt for the pain and don’t get off until it lets go.