What is Muscle Flossing

I wanted to take some time to share some information about one of my personal favorite recovery tools.

How it works… Flossing our muscles works a lot like flossing our teeth. When you compress muscle groups and take them through their range of motion, it creates a 'flossing like' effect between individual muscles. It helps break up adhesions in the fascia that may exist and allowing for a better range of motion and movement.

Sciencey stuff…

• The compression from the band causes adhesions to release.

• By incorporating movement with this technique, it increases its effectiveness by restoring the sliding surfaces of the muscle fibers and surrounding tissues.

• Also, compressing a swollen or inflamed area decreases the swelling by pushing the inflammation back into circulation via the lymphatic system.

I am not a doctor use this mobility tool with caution or have a professional do it for you.

Guidelines when using…

• Always wrap joint towards the heart, starting at the furthest part from the heart and working towards it.

• Always overlap the band by 50%.

• Wrap the band with 50% tension and 75% tension over the targeted area.

• Incorporate movement gradually and make sure that you are moving with good form. Mobilizing in a lousy position, only reinforces negative habits.

• Don't force the movement. "Floss" the joint through a functional movement pattern and try to increase the range of motion with each repetition.

• Make the movement functional. Make a push-up, squat, lunge, or overhead press, but make sure it is correct and through a full range of motion.

• To increase your range of motion of a joint, wrap one band above the joint and one below. Go through a movement pattern, squat, do a push-up, lunge, etc.

• Only floss for a maximum of two minutes at a time to allow the tissue to recover and re-vascularize.

Here is a link to a great floss to start with

Here is a link to some awesome videos on how to floss

https://acumobility.com/pages/floss-videos