Bodywork, Foam Rollers, & Percussion for Athletes Ep 4

Welcome to the Find Your Edge podcast. Get ready to dive into all things training, nutrition, recovery, and more. Whether you're a new or experienced endurance athlete, a weekend warrior, or someone who just wants to improve your health and fitness, this podcast is for you. I'm Chris Newport, founder, head coach, registered dietitian, exercise physiologist, and certified personal trainer with the Endurance Edge and the Fueling Edge. With more than With over 20 years experience in the fitness industry, 18 years in multi-sport, and over 10 years as a sports nutritionist, I'm speaking with athletes and experts about key actionable steps you can take to reach and sustain peak performance and health. Let's do it. All right, welcome back, guys. I am so excited to have Vincent from Myology here today. Welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

Yes, of course. So as a small business owner myself, I am very excited to support other small business owners in the area, but I think this conversation will be useful not only to people who live locally in the Raleigh-Durham area, but also hopefully, uh, more widely, nationally, internationally for the benefits of bodywork and massage therapy. So Vincent, let's get started by tell, tell me a little bit about your company and who you serve and Okay.

Uh, so our company is Myology Sports Massage. We are based in the Raleigh-Durham-Cary area. Uh, we have 7 therapists on our staff. We don't, we don't have like a traditional brick and mortar, like a lot of facilities. We actually work with athletic facilities such as CrossFit and like Triangle Aquatic Center to kind of share square footage, provide a service to them as well as bring people or draw people into that facility as providing bodywork. We've been around since about 6 years now. So we've been in the community for a little while. And, um, we started out predominantly focused on like that CrossFit, uh, athlete, because that's what we worked with. Like, that's how we got started, how we got into things. And over the years, it's just become more, uh, broad spectrum. Uh, so it's just anybody really that's looking to move better at this point. So whether it's your couch to 5K or more of your elite athlete, and everything in between. If you're just looking to move better, we're going to work to kind of help you with that. To answer your question on how I got started, I got started— I'd done amateur bodywork, okay, you know, uh, working in like nightclubs and that kind of thing when I was much younger. And people kept saying, oh, you got talent, you know, you're pretty good at that. And then eventually, like maybe 5 or 6 years later, I finally listened to that and went to school.

Um, what were you doing before?

Uh, worked for Sprint doing logistics analytics. Analytics.

Okay, so it's like a total career change.

Yeah. Yeah.

Wow.

Which is kind of funny, you know, uh, you know, being able to have jobs and careers that allowed me to be on both sides of the spectrum there, you know. So I— it was very helpful being an entrepreneur now, uh, to be in that environment.

Yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. So I see behind you, you've got like tons of Oh yeah, posters.

And I've got charts galore.

Yeah, that's awesome. So are you based out of like a specific office where you're at right now and then you just, and then you, and then you're mobile?

Yep. So me specifically, I'm predominantly out of a facility called CrossFit Goliath up in North Raleigh.

Okay.

And, uh, so this is my primary place of business. And then we have an office set up at 12th State CrossFit. RDU CrossFit.

Uh, we have kind of all over the Triangle, right?

Yeah. All over the Triangle, uh, from, from Holly Springs to Cary to Durham to North Raleigh. Yeah. We're kind of all over the place and we have an office out in Greensboro as well.

Okay.

Wow.

So with that business model that you were talking about with 7 different therapists being at various different gyms and not necessarily having like the consistency of a typical massage therapy or sort of spa location where you're always going to be in the same room, you've got the sweet peaceful music going and all that kind of stuff. How, how are you different than the traditional sort of spa model?

So, I mean, I mean, our, we're always in, all of our people are in the same space, wherever they may be, they're always in the same space. So there's familiarity for the clients. Now, We are not going to be playing pan flutes and waterfalls in the background for you because that's just not the type of work that we do. Ours is— our type of work is sports-based and movement-based. So we're going to probably be doing some things that are going to be a little uncomfortable, but it might be necessary in order to get you moving better.

And just to clarify, this is not like sheet Houdini work, right? This is all clothed.

Oh yeah. You know, you're, you're, uh, for guys, you know, they're typically just wearing shorts. For ladies, they're typically wearing a tank, sports bra, and shorts, just depending on what we need to work on and how much access we need, but you're always wearing clothes.

So how does that allow you to treat the athlete better than like the typical under the sheet sort of work?

Well, I mean, the typical under the sheet work, people are trying to relax and honestly are there for the environment and to just chill out. We're constantly moving our clients. So just trying to control sheets and make sure everyone's taken care of and covered is just not something that's going to go out and go well. It's not efficient at all. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. So how often should athletes, or, well, let's say, let's call it a perfect world, perfect world. How often should athletes get bodywork? And realistically, seeing that a lot of us have, you know, jobs and kids and families and Obviously we've got to train at some point too. What does that look like more realistically?

So first of all, we, it's, it's goals of the athlete. Like what are the athlete's goals? Like if they're, what is their volume? What part of training are they in? If they are training, those are all things that are factors of how often they should ideally get in. In a perfect world, if we're starting from square one and we know that you're getting ready to train for, say, like an Ironman or something like that. The number of visits will probably get closer together as you get to the meat of your training schedule, because you're going to need it. I've got athletes that come in once a week. Most athletes that are actually training for something specific or in a, or in the course of training for something specific are probably every other week, unless they have something creep up on them. And then for most of my athletes that are just honestly working out right now to stay in shape, they're about 4 to 6 weeks per visit.

And does the length of time that they're actually working with you, does that matter? Mm.

Again, depends on their goals. If they have a minor something that they want worked on, say a shoulder or an ankle or just something that's minor, 30-minute session is not an— it's not unheard of and it's pretty simple to address with them. If they are needing multiple segments of the body taken care of, for this particular session, we're probably going to need at least an hour just to work through the tissue and get it to respond to us.

Yeah. So it's interesting that you missed— that you mentioned tissue. So I've heard some therapists work on fascia versus muscle tissue. So explain a little bit about the differences and what it's like on your end and what, and what it matters for the athlete on. It doesn't matter if we know what you're working on or not. Or how you're working on it?

Well, I think a lot of athletes like to be informed, uh, just because they like to know how their body's responding to something, because it may be relative or relevant to something else that they're doing. But as far as the difference in the tissue, so I mean, you have your layers, you have your skin, your fascia lata, superficial fascia, then you have your adipose tissue, then you have your, your deep fascia and muscle tissue. And they, they all correspond to each other. They all respond to each other. The superficial is more sensory, more neurological. And so if we can't get it to calm down, then we really can't get to the deeper stuff to have any effect on that. And sometimes the superficial may be all we need to work on because that may just be restricting everything. So, I mean, that's just, you know, kind of the layering of how we have to go about it.

So that kind of makes me think, does that matter if, if somebody's like stressed out?

Yeah, absolutely.

Okay.

So stress builds up in, in your, uh, in your fascia, uh, readily, easily. If you're stressed out, you're going to tighten up. And one of the things from the first things to tighten up is that superficial fascia. Now that fascia also holds tensegrity. So just the structural integrity between the superficial and deep layers. And as you're training, you know, that tensegrity is going to get, uh, is going to build up. Per the movement that you're training for, so to speak. Like, for example, I like to do strongman-type movements for exercise. If I go and try and pick up a 500-pound yoke in week 1 versus week 6, it's going to go way different. The strength, the strength may be there, but my body may not be prepared to accept it. And that's where I'm talking about building up, building up that tensegrity.

So it sounds like training in Because the same concept is true for training, right? And that's basically the point you were just making there is that we have to give ourselves the appropriate amount of overload, not only from perhaps a cardiorespiratory perspective, but also from a tissue perspective for allowing that tissue to be able to respond.

Well, it's like gymnasts have to build up that integrity in their wrists and their shoulders, uh, to be able to handle that, uh, the amount of pressure they put on it, like with vaulting and rings and floor routines and all that stuff. If they were to do that, you know, a year or two younger before they had all that experience and training, it may not go as well. It may not go at all. You know, they have to build up that, that, uh, resilience or tensegrity there.

Interesting. Yeah. So it sounds like bodywork and training all go together.

You think?

Right. It's like the period we're taught periodization and So our bodywork should be sort of periodized with our training.

Yes, exactly.

Very cool.

As volume and intensity increase, your recovery should also increase, whether that's on the table bodywork or whether that's, you know, going to swim as a, you know, off day, or whether that's going to sit in, you know, uh, you know, a sauna or whatever the case may be, whatever works best for your body. But yes. That bodywork recovery should increase as you increase.

So I've heard a lot of athletes who think it's useful or there's no purpose to bodywork unless it is painful. What would you say to that?

I mean, that's, that's the perception of all the athletes, because typically when athletes come in, I mean, they've got something going on. As soon as you touch it, they jump like a scared cat. I mean, so, I mean, honestly, that's the relationship they have. They're getting something done and it hurts. So that must be how it has to work, but no, it doesn't have to hurt. Again, it's that neurological response with the superficial fascia. I mean, that's a big part of it. Uh, if you go into it guns blazing, I mean, their body's just gonna jump all over the place and it's going to get defensive and you're just not going to get anywhere. You're going to spend the next 15 minutes trying to calm it all back down. But if you go into it and just nice and easy working your way through, kind of teaching the body, hey, it's okay. We're not going to hurt you. You'll get a lot further. It still may be uncomfortable, but you'll get further.

Yeah. Do you do any like specific techniques to get people to relax? Like, are you encouraging them to breathe or talking to them or making them laugh? Or is there something that helps? That process to let go?

Yeah, breathing is always a challenge for our people for some reason or another. They like to hold their breath. Yeah. But, uh, no, uh, how we start with it. So we start with a palpation assessment according to what they've told us is going on. We'll check out those areas, check out range of motion, that kind of thing. That is a way for them to get used to us and us to kind of get used to them, especially if maybe it's a first-time visit. We may not know what their body's going to do or how it's going to respond. Then we'll start with some joint mobilization to move whatever is being affected just to see how's it moving. Then a lot of times what we'll do is we'll take some metal tools. Some people refer to as I-Stim, Gua Sha, Graston, A-Stim, I-Stim, I mean, whatever terminology people are familiar with, we'll use it lightly to help stimulate the tissue. Get blood coming to the area that we're trying to treat. That typically softens everything. It also triggers that, that response to the brain to kind of increase blood flow to promote the healing process. And then we can kind of really go from there because once that starts to soften up and we get some blood supply going to that area, it's pretty wide open for us to work on the tissue.

Do you think it's as easy for people like it, like you're mentioning, like the Graston Technique that I would say that tool kind of looks like a kind of a long butter knife, I guess. I don't know. How would you describe it?

Well, they come, they come in all forms and fashions. I mean, we've got, you know, what's called a handlebar.

Ooh, look at that guy.

Pretty long that, you know, for like quads, hamstrings, back. Then you've got your, uh, your Rocktape tools. That's, uh, what they call the mallet there. And this is what they call like the tomahawk. But there's all shapes and sizes. And again, at this day and time, everybody's making something as far as the metal, as far as metal tools go. It's not exclusive to Graston anymore. It's pretty much an open market as far as that stuff goes.

Would you advise somebody to get one of those tools and use it on themselves, or do you think it's better applied from an outside force? Like, like a therapist?

Well, that's already happening. They're so accessible. I mean, you can buy these tools.

But are we using them right?

No, probably not. Uh, now doing it with informed information, uh, doing it with some— like, say, asking me as a clinical provider, hey, how should I do this? At that point, I know they're going to do it regardless of what I say to them, so I may as well tell them how to do it properly. Properly, because like I said, they're going to go buy the cupping sets. They're going to go buy the metal tools. They're going to go buy whatever they can get their hands on, and they're going to try and treat themselves regardless. Uh, so you may as well help educate them.

Have you spent quite a bit of time doing that first, or does it matter, or does it depend on the athlete and how interested they are in doing their own self-care?

I think it depends on the athlete because I don't spend a tremendous amount of time dealing with that. But if someone does, uh, you know, broach the question with me, I'm going to take some time to explain how I go through things because I don't want them bruising the heck out of their tissues and just being super sore or can't use it, or maybe have hurt themselves worse than, than, you know, you possibly should because they'll go too hard on it, they'll damage the tissues. The next thing you know, hey, I did this. And you're like, okay. Yep.

All right. Yeah. So that, that begs the question, how badly can you injure yourself with some of these self-care tools?

Or— I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's microtrauma when you're using them, but I mean, it'll turn into blunt force trauma. Like you, like a typical bruise. If you go at it too hard, I mean, you'll, you'll be black and blue if you're not too, if you're not careful with it.

Does that present a risk for, uh, like loosening a clot or anything like that?

I haven't had any experience with that, nor have I seen any research on that, so I, I don't know, don't think I can answer that, you know, appropriately.

Okay, so what about some of these other— since we're on the topic of gadgets and gizmos, you mentioned cupping. Um, should we— if we do something like that? Well, first of all, is that something that you guys do or you guys provide? And secondly, is it valuable for us to do it ourselves? And should we be black and blue like the Michael Phelps of the world in the Olympics?

So, uh, the first part of the question, yes, we provide cupping, um, or decompression therapy. And then if, uh, like I've taken a course where it's technically called myofascial decompression therapy, just again, just depends on who you're talking to and what they're familiar with. Now, traditional cupping, uh, is like your fire cupping and your static cupping. Again, those things depend on what your goals are because the, the goals that those treatments say that they're good for are different across the board. So like MFD, so myofascial decompression, that's geared towards minimal amount of cups. They're stat— they're stationary, but you're going to run the, uh, appendage or body through articulation. While they're in certain spots. Now, the more common approach to cupping that you see is 30 cups across the entire backside of the body, and the person can't move because all of that pressure being put on their tissues. I don't, I don't care for that one. I prefer most of the time it's either MFD, so where I'm using 2 to 3 cups and articulating the joint or body part, or I'm just using, um, active cupping where I'm just constantly moving the cup in the directionality of either the tissue or the movement I'm trying to facilitate.

And what you mean by articulating would be basically continuing to keep the body part moving, correct?

Yeah. So, like, let's take a shoulder, for example. If you're having issues with overhead mobility, providing there's no structural issues or anything like that, we've already, you know, assessed that, you know, we can put cups around the shoulder blade and then move the arm through that overhead range of motion that that athlete is using. So Olympic overhead range of motion may be a little different than a climber's overhead range of motion. So, you know, adjusted to their sport and what they're actually trying to do, but it's just moving, supporting the arm, supporting the shoulder, and just moving it through the range that they're trying to accomplish.

Great. Awesome. Um, how about the foam rolling and tools like a Theragun. I know that that's been kind of hot on the market. I actually have a client who made one themselves from tools at the department store. So yeah, tell me your thoughts on those gadgets and are they helpful? Should we, should we bother?

So foam rolling is helpful if it's done with intent. So I don't, really prescribe to the global foam rolling where, you know, you walk into a class and you see everybody just kind of lounging around on the foam rollers. They might move a little bit this way, a little bit that way, or they're rolling everything from their ankles to their neck, you know, in one sitting. I do believe that if you're trying to warm up, the foam rolling is going to stimulate blood flow. And if you're using it appropriately and maybe hitting a couple of trigger points that are going to be an issue for you, Say, if you're doing squats that day, you're probably gonna find a trigger point on the, about the middle of your lateral quad. And that's probably gonna be a sticking point. And if you were to find that, isolate it, use small range of motion going across it, like 4 inches up, 4 inches down, and then pin it and then articulate your knee back and forth to stretch that tissue across that foam roller, then yeah, I think that's highly useful. But this—

you mean holding on that particular spot, correct?

Using your body weight to keep you in that spot and on top of the foam roller. So, you know, whether it's your lat, your tricep, lateral quad, rec fem, whatever the case may be, but using your body weight to kind of keep you positioned on top of the foam roller and just addressing again, you know, like a 4 to 6-inch spot to be very intentful with what you're doing. Versus just kind of all over the place, rolling. Yeah, just, just roll into roll at that point.

Yeah. So it sounds like your time is better spent doing something else or being more intentional with the roller.

Well, I mean, most of, like, most of the treatments that are available out there, intent is the missing ingredient. Like, they don't know what they don't know. They don't know how to specifically address something in particular, so they just shotgun it and And I'm talking mainly to athletes that are doing this to themselves. Of course, you know, there's still that way with the clinicians to some point too, but specifically athletes, you know, they'll buy these things and they're just like, well, if I do a lot of it and I do it everywhere, it's just going to feel better. And in some cases they're right because the body's just going to feel better when you stimulate blood flow, but they still may have the same issue a couple of days later because they didn't use intent to address it. But to your point with the percussion guns, I think they are beneficial. We use them. We use the, the Hypervolt gun by Hyperice. Now there's a wide array of those out on the market, and I've seen, I've seen maybe 3 that are like reliable manufacturers. SeraGun's one of them, Hyperice is another one, and then there's, uh, there's a couple other fringe manufacturers out there that seem to do a pretty good job. Okay. But then there's a plethora of just terrible ones. Hey, I've got percussion, $50, buy it while it lasts, you know, kind of thing. And people buy it, uh, just because of price point. Yeah. Now most of those come with some form of hard, like, polymer end and maybe a softer rubbery kind of end, and then like a tuning fork looking end. That seems to be predominant shapes. I think if most of them are using like that rubbery cushiony end, they're not really going to do hardly any kind of damage even if they tried, uh, just because it's, it's absorbing the impact. Like if you were to use the hard polymer ends, yeah, you, you can bruise the tissue because a lot of them won't let the gun do the work and just hold it there. They'll actually try and force that device into their tissues and you'll hear it just like, ah, ah, ah, ah, you know, it gets all bound up and whatnot. But they're trying to, they're trying to force it in there versus just kind of letting the gun do the job that it's actually built to do.

So would you advise using the tools that we've talked about? We've talked about foam rollers, percussion guns. Oh, and we got to get to tennis balls and racquetballs, which I guess is a little bit more like a foam roller, but trigger point therapy. Before workouts, after workouts, for a little bit of time, a lot of time? You know, what's your kind of guidance on that?

So for before workouts, I think you should just be stimulating blood flow, articulating whatever joint or joints that you're going to primarily be using for the workout or your strength training or whatever the case may be, running those through full range of motion. So maybe like animal movements like bear crawls, Spider-Man crawls. Stuff like whatever is going to run you through full range with body weight and just get the blood flow going. I don't really care for the static stretching or ballistic stretching prior to moving weight, and I'll be specific about moving weight. If you're doing that and then going for a run or something like that, okay, it's not— maybe it's not that big of a deal. But when you're getting under a barbell and you're getting ready to load your body up and you just spent time doing ballistic stretching or static stretching and telling your muscles, I want you to chill out, it's not going to go well. It's kind of like building the tensegrity, like we were talking about before, to be prepared for the movement. If you're spending time trying to elastize that tensegrity, it's not going to go well when you need to actually tighten it up.

So that makes me think of different programming styles, and I've kind of played around with this with my athletes in terms of doing more strength training workouts followed by their cardio workouts. And that being said, generally speaking, our goal is either a triathlon or some sort of endurance event. The strength training is a little bit more supportive rather than like a CrossFit where their goal might be to improve their front squat or snatch or whatever. I've kind of played around with programming one being first or the other based on what you're indicating for, you know, getting that blood flow and the articulation of the joints. Do you have a preference as to which workout comes first, or is it just a matter of being prepared for whatever work that they're going to do, the athlete's going to do?

So I, I, I do like the strength training prior to a cardio session versus flipping the two. I think the strength training will allow you to just kind of get the body going. Get the proprioception going, you know, just kind of fundamentally to be ready versus going into a ballistic movement straight away, such as, you know, running. I don't think that it behooves your body to just jump straight into something like that.

So let me make sure that you say that again, because we have a lot of, especially our, you know, since we do work with so many endurance athletes and this is going to a lot of endurance athletes. I have so many people who literally open the door to their house and they walk out the door and they start running.

Yep.

Like, you know, I feel like I sometimes I have to bang my head against the wall to get them to warm up, especially for somebody who might be injury prone. So tell us about that and how important they need to, to be doing the warmup.

If they're injury prone, uh, you know, that's just being naive that you're not going to hurt yourself if you do that. Now, on the other side of that, I have plenty of athletes where, again, they've built up that tensegrity in their body for that movement, for that particular style of exercise they're getting ready to do, that they can just go start at a slow pace and just do the thing. And that's just how they— that's how they have done it and how they've been doing it. So their body's used to it. So, I mean, there are people that can do it. I'm not saying that they need to change Their body is just accustomed to doing that. But for the average person, most people can't just do that.

Yeah.

Your higher-end athletes can. I mean, they've been training for so long doing that, doing probably that same sport, that they're fine. Again, if they're injury-prone, that's just not being smart.

Have you seen, especially some of your higher-level athletes who are doing this, constantly. And of course we have, you know, triathletes who are training 5, 6, sometimes even 7 days a week with their propensity for injury or just getting excessively tight. We see a lot of hamstrings that get tight hip flexors.

I'm sure you get a lot of adductors issues as well.

Uh, yeah. Weakness in glute meads, holding their head up on, on the bike for excessive amounts of time. Does that make, even if they're not necessarily doing a lot of warmups, does that make that self-care, that bodywork even more important than somebody who might not be training quite as much? Or is it maybe just as important no matter who you are?

I mean, I think some things are just, it's going to make that just as important regardless of whether you're an amateur or whether you're a high-end athlete. Uh, so like you said, being on the bike. Being in that position for long periods of time, that is going to just wreck your body. And it doesn't matter if you're a high-end athlete, that just means you're going to go further, which just means you're going to do the same thing. It's all relative. A 5-mile, uh, you know, that's really short for bike ride, but you get what I'm saying. A short bike ride for an amateur athlete versus a long ride for an experienced athlete, it's the same thing. It's all relative. Yeah, same for running, um, same for You know, CrossFit athletes, if they're going to do the same repetitive movement for a long period of time relative to their skill level, they need that bodywork. They need to recover from it because they're going to beat themselves up.

So what are some of the common— what are the things that you just continue to keep working on? There's some of the, some of the common injuries are, um, whether it be for more of a strength-based athlete or an endurance-based athlete, do you Do you see a lot of commonalities there?

There, there are definitely some common areas. Um, anterior pelvic tilt tension. Uh, it's a big one.

Okay. So explain that a little bit, cause I know what an anterior pelvic tilt is, but a lot of people are going, wait, huh?

So that means you're a quad dominant athlete for the most part. That's the simplest way to explain it. You just use your quads. They're happy when you use them and you don't, use your butt or something else, depending on, depending on what the movement is. But that just means you're probably a quad dominant athlete. Um, and what it does is it pulls the front of that hip down, which hikes the back of that hip up, which tightens your hamstrings, which then puts pressure on your psoas. And it also puts pressure on your QLs and your erectors and, you know, a ton of things. But, you know, when the hips are not happy, a lot of things go wrong.

Both above and below, correct?

Yes. 100% above and below. If something's going— like if something's off in the shoulders, it doesn't necessarily affect, you know, down to your hips. But if something's off in your hips, it can affect your ankles and vice versa. And it can affect your shoulders.

Interesting. So you've mentioned quad dominant. We do see, obviously we work with a lot of runners and more of the hamstring dominant. What are some of the issues that you might see that are commonly with runners?

So when we say runners, I mean, we got to kind of pare that down, I think, because if you're talking like your ultras, they don't hardly ever get in their hamstrings unless they're off-road and they're going on trails and then, okay, the terrain makes them get in their hamstrings. Or versus sprinters who use the heck out of their hamstrings and their glute max. Uh, so I mean, there's a wide variation of runner there.

Yeah.

Yeah. Um, cause yeah, cause I mean, a lot of times, uh, you hear about runner's butt, which means you have a lack of glute max activity.

We see that a lot. How can we get our butts to turn on?

And that's because they don't utilize their posterior chain when they run. Which is where you see your ultra runners or your trail runners and all that good stuff. But, um, your sprinters do that very well. Otherwise they're not going to be sprinting. Sorry. Let's re— let's rewind to the initial question. Cause I kind of was going off on a tangent.

Yeah. So, um, just talking about like common injuries in runners, like talking about posterior chain, I know that we see a lot of, um, uh, like glute medius issues, glute max, and even Talk a little bit about upper body stuff, because now that, you know, I'm working from home and a lot of other people are working from home and you just kind of like leaned back a little bit, you know, it's like this sitting posture thing. Now we're doing all these movements and, you know, strength training is very similar to, we're doing pushups and we're doing, um, all of these, like all of the movements in front of ourselves. And then we get this sort of like, so that combination, we get that kind of like cathartic Posture, that combination of life and sport, that make it worse. And is there anything we can do about that?

So, um, as human beings, we contract the muscles on the front of our bodies much better than we do the back of our bodies. Hence the fetal position, trying to get someone to develop in between their shoulder blades so they can retract their shoulder blades to stand up taller is It's hard because they don't know how to do it. Because again, like you said, they sit at a desk all day and their arms are out in front of them. They're typing, they're moving their mouse, they're answering their phone. They don't know how to pinch their shoulder blades together anymore. So from this current day and time, a lot of— with athletes in general, uh, one of the muscles in particular, and I don't usually go specific muscle because I usually deal with fascial trains or fascial lines. Pec minor is one of the largest upper body killers out there, just because of where it's placed. You know, it's right here on the outside of your chest and attaches to your shoulder blade. And then when it gets tight, it pulls down on the front of that bone and causes your shoulder blade just to kind of come up like this. You look like you're flexing your traps, but it's just because of the position of the shoulder. And when this happens, taking your arms overhead, that doesn't happen. Whereas if we are able to get our shoulder blades back, this happens really easily. So that's one of the biggest killers is pec minor, subscap, serratus anterior. Those are probably the 3 biggest upper body killers.

Uh, and where is subscap and serratus anterior?

Okay. So subscap is on the inside of your shoulder blade up against your ribs. So it's between, you have your ribs and you have serratus anterior up against that. And then you have subscap and then you have your shoulder blade. And then those will interiorly rotate your shoulder. So it'll make them fold forward and, and, and then down with serratus anterior.

As a therapist, you're— that's a really tough one, I would imagine, for self-care, for somebody to be able to get to themselves. Because how are you guys getting to that?

So the only, only real way you can get to subscap is when the person is laying on their back.

And you go through the axillary area, just pointing to his armpit right now for—

yeah. And so that's just below the hairline in your armpit and you can get into the subscap right through there. And then you can articulate the arm to open up that internal rotation. For the serratus anterior, a similar spot because the serratus comes across the ribs as it comes into the front of the body. So we would, we would approach it fairly similarly. Now for you at home, you would probably— the easiest way to do that would be to grab like a PVC pipe, like a 5-foot-tall PVC pipe, cut a hole in the bottom of a tennis ball, and put the tennis ball right on top of the PVC pipe. And then you'll actually pry it up or lean it against the wall, a door, or whatever so that the bottom doesn't slide on you. And you're going to put that, that pipe, that ball just below your hairline right here beside your ribs. And then once you get the pressure there, you'll feel your shoulder blade push backwards or push posteriorly. And then you just run your arm through overhead range of motion or in a pressing fashion, and that'll help open up all through here.

So as you're doing that, it's reminding me of how many of my triathletes cannot get into a streamlined position. So generally, you know, all we'll see is since, you know, we're at a Triangle Aquatic Center, we see all these swimmers all day long who literally just have this beautiful shoulder range of motion, but my triathletes really struggle with that. So do you think that that would be something to help with that? And do you have any other thoughts as it relates to like mobility to be able to help? Get into that position?

So they need more mobility in this subscap serratus area, like we were just talking, but more importantly, they need strengthening in between their shoulder blades.

So those rhomboids and yeah.

So a quick little thing for them would just be to take a little red band like this. Put it over their head, arms out in front of them where the hands are just shoulder width apart, and then just pull apart to the chest. And as they get to the chest, pinch the shoulder blades and push the chest through.

Is it best to do that seated? So you can do it standing, sort of anterior tilt the pelvis while we're—

so I would, I would normally do it standing. Uh, I'm just doing it seated because of the camera. Right.

Right. All right. So, and that's just, that looked like a band that you would get at like a Amazon. Amazon. Yeah. Do, what about the physical therapy bands? The wider bands, would that—

Those will be fine too. The resistance for some people may not be enough. It just may not be strong enough, but it'll at least allow them to start working on it.

Is there value in not only just doing like reps, but also holding? That position?

I would— yeah, reps, yes. Somewhere around— somewhere you want a band that'll allow you to do somewhere around 15 to 20. So whatever that strength is for that person, they need to be able to do 15 to 20 without, you know, kind of having a hard time with it. And as far as holding it, I do like about a 2-second pause when you go all the way through and you're pinching your shoulder blades. Just a 2-second pause before you come back out.

So we address the upper body. Now that kind of, I'm still talking about the person who's sitting at their desk all day and then going out to swim, bike, run, lift, whatever. In my mind that says your poor psoas or your poor hip flexors are just unhappy. How can we work on those?

Yes, you can stretch the TFL and yes, you can stretch the rectus femoris, the quads. Primarily the rectus femoris, but you need to strengthen your glute max. Typically your glute med is probably going to be getting overworked already. So I would say they need to strengthen their glute max and stretch. So stretch the front of the legs and strengthen the posterior so they can get some external hip rotation versus being internally tight all the time.

Are you a fan of yoga or? Or do you matter how people— does it matter to you how people get their stretching in? If they do yoga or they do their static stretching after their workout or they foam roll, or do you care?

Honestly, if they're doing it, it's a win because a lot of them just grab their gear or just sit around and talk and then leave, and they've already cooled down, so stretching is kind of pointless at that point. But I mean, yoga is a great one just because it'll teach them how to do something. At least there's someone there to instruct them if they're doing it wrong kind of thing. But if they're doing it, I'm usually just happy that they're actually getting it done.

That's awesome. So if they're, if they're not so into getting their self-care and they're regular about bodywork, yeah, is that an okay replacement? Are they allowed to not stretch or do a lot of their own work if they're just getting—

No, it's not a replacement.

Yeah.

No, as much as I would like, yeah, come on in, we'll get you on the schedule. It's fine. It's not a replacement. You, anyone in my industry would not be able to do enough work often enough to keep up with someone who is working out at least an hour a day. Cause that's usually the minimum for any kind of athlete. And with your triathletes, it's hours a day, 5 days, 6 days, 7 days a week. You're just not going to come in enough time. You can't keep up with it. So no, it's not a replacement.

All right. So it sounds like we need to come see you. You want to come see you. How do we do that?

Uh, so our website is myologiesportsmassage.com.

And I'll be sure to link to that.

And then we have an online booking button on there. Uh, there's also an app available that you can utilize from your phone as well.

Awesome. So Vincent, we always try to wrap things up with some key takeaways, perhaps a bit of a summary or just 2 or 3 things that you think, uh, will help people with their health and performance as it relates to what we've, we've talked about. So what would be your things for people to take away?

I mean, just don't be afraid to ask. I mean, talk to, talk to healthcare professionals, talk to, you know, PTs, talk to people like you who do the trainings, you know, talk to massage therapists, uh, you know, hey, what can I be doing? You know, if you don't know, it's fine, just ask. Well, most, most people will be happy to help you if it's, if it's for nothing else other than trying to earn your business, they'll be happy to help you. But I would just say just You know, don't be quiet about it. Ask, you know, if you don't know, and just make sure that you're doing your warmups, doing your cool-downs, getting the bodywork in that is appropriate for whatever you're training for.

Well, Vincent from Myology, thank you so much for joining us today. We are definitely going to be being sure that we're not afraid to ask, to speak up, to get those tools that we need for our particular needs as an athlete and our particular goals and making sure that we're doing our warmups, our cooldowns, and getting our body work.

Sounds like a plan. Awesome. Thanks for having me.

Yes. Thank you. And hopefully we'll touch base again soon.