Hello! I am Max Wettstein, fitness professional, fat loss expert, abs expert, and welcome back to Encinitas, California.
Today, I don't have a lot of time, but I want to tell you, if you don't have the money for a massage therapist or a chiropractor or a holistic health practitioner, and you have muscle adhesions, trigger points, spasms, or if you are just an athlete, or if you are over 30, here is how you take care of yourself at home, for free, all by yourself, we are going to do it today.
Now, how do I know how to talk about this stuff? Well, I have been playing sports for almost 30 years. You have seen my covers. I basically live my life like an athlete everyday. I have always got some sort of self therapy going on, some kind of self maintenance. And you basically have to get in there and do it, whether it's rest, ice, compression, and elevation, self massage, rolling yourself out, using a Swiss ball, getting in there and loosening up your muscle adhesions. Getting out the trigger points, taking care of your muscles spasms. You have got to do it folks, or else you are not going to last long in this game.
Okay. So let's get right to it. We do not have a lot of time. I am not a doctor, this is opinion only. I am however married to a massage therapist and physical therapist assistant. Like I said, I have been training and exercising for almost 30 years, so you really get to know a little bit how to take care of yourself. And if you don't take care of yourself, just like sleep and nutrition and training, then your body is going to break down over time.
Now, this has nothing to do with acute trauma or a traumatic injury. If that happens, maybe go see your doctor. This is kind of what I am getting at here is, overuse type of pain, muscle adhesions, deform from inflammation, and stress, or overuse, tendinitis, that's what we are talking about. So let's get started.
First things first, Swiss ball. This feels good. Just roll back. We are not exercising here folks, this is just therapy, making yourself feel better.
Don't be surprised if you actually have a vertebra adjust. There is a time and a place for a chiropractor, a time and a place for a masseuse, a time and a place for a physical therapist, but we don't always have time for that, we don't always have money for that, so here is how we do it at home.
This, anybody who is an athlete, or trains hard, get one of these. You can get it at any Road Runner Sports catalog. It's a three foot foam roller. This is going to roll out and lengthen your muscles, roll out the fascia, loosen up muscle adhesions, help knots let go, help break up scar tissue. It's really great for the IT band, for the gluteus, for the piriformis, for the quads. There we go.
Feel free to roll out however you want, you can, there is no right or wrong way.
Roll forward. You can really just feel it. Flatten and lengthen the muscle bellies, and roll out the fascia. I am coming on to my IT band, getting into hip flexors, the soleus, now the piriformis, and the gluteus. Just roll it out folks.
You can even lay back on this one. Roll out the back muscles. Again, your vertebra may adjust, this is not dangerous.
So you are always walking around with stress knots, trigger point tight knots, get one of these. You don't need a massage therapist. Nothing beats a massage therapist, but if you don't, get something like this, see this. You can put this right into the knot, apply a pressure, feel the trigger point start to loosen up, and let go. You might even feel some referral pain. You can get in all those hard to reach spots.
Again, right out of a Road Runner Sports catalog. I keep this in my truck when I am stuck in LA traffic. Right here, breaks down any muscle knot, help your muscles let go. Probably cost $5.
Ever had a plantar fasciitis, roll your arch out on this, you will be good to go. Stick. Anybody who is a distance runner or just runs for a hobby knows about the stick.
Shin splints, gone. IT band, gone. You have got adhesions or knots in your quad, gone. This is almost better than any deep tissue massage you will ever get.
So now it's time to workout. What you do, you get a little Biofreeze, this is the best. You massage it right in there. It's going to warm up that muscle like crazy. Then, wherever you had the injury or the adhesion or the knot, wrap it with some knee cream, that's going to trap the heat in. It's also going to give the muscle belly something to flex against, it's like an added layer of fascia, making your muscle even stronger. Because that's what fascia does, it surrounds the muscles. It allows the muscles to flex against it, making your muscle stronger. Or you want that fascia to be able to slide underneath the skin easily.
Lot of people believe that all alignment starts with the feet. That makes sense. Most of us, a lot of us, have a little bit of a leg length imbalance. Whether that's due to your spine being out of alignment, or your hips, or whether it's really anatomical, that really needs to be diagnosed by a physical therapist or a chiropractor, which I am not. I happen to have a little bit of leg length difference. Bam! Gone. You put the heel lift in there, $5. You know how many problems you just solved? You know how inexpensive that was?
Then, go out and try on some little orthotics. You slide it in your shoe. That's going to just support your arch so much more, and just put your whole posture back into alignment for less than $10. It's not really rocket science, you can do it too.
Another common thing, just real quick. Patellar tendinitis, right here, less than $5. You wrap it right around that, while you are running or jumping, it helps release the tendon that's under stress and takes away the pain.
Also, when you do have an injury, what happens is scar tissue starts filling in there, it's just really strong form of collagen that just fills in there to help repair, but it doesn't line up correctly with the muscle, and it's never as strong as the muscle was before the injury. So you want to just kind of break that down as you are healing with some cross friction massage, cross friction massage, and you also want to just continue to ice it.
The tennis ball. This is also known as a magic ball in my house, because when you don't have a massage therapist available and you got a crazy knot in your back, or a muscle is tight; I am going to admit that this is not my idea, somebody showed me this, but it's brilliant.
Put the ball back there, find the knot, and just come here and show him, just work it, you work that knot. That knot is just disappearing as we speak, letting go. Releasing the muscle so it can work properly, and it's proper shape and proper length. The knot may have been caused by stress, physical stress or emotional stress or stress from work, systemic inflammation, I don't know what's caused the knot. Surfing, I don't know. But I am getting rid of it.
I could feel the referral pain go all the way up the neck. Now, if you are under 30, you may not know what I am talking about, but if you are an athlete or you are over 30, you can relate.
Right here, I get tight in the piriformis and the gluteus. For more advance knots, go ahead and put the ball on the floor and lay on it and do it that way.
Fish oil, another great one for the joints. It's also a major anti-inflammatory. And let's face it folks who are over 30 or even over 35, inflammation is one of the key things, it's linked to almost all systemic disease. It's also a major cause of joint pain and just general pain. There is a time and a place for something called a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug, aka, the generic form of this one is called Ibuprofen. Cheap, over-the-counter, and there is a time and a place for this. You just are that sore. You sprain your ankle. I am not really talking about acute injuries today, but this is going to come to your rescue. Just start with the smallest effective dose. I break the tablet in half and use 100 milligrams and work up from there as needed.
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