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I had meant to post this yesterday for TriggerPoint Tuesday, but got caught up with some other projects and forgot, so we have TriggerPoint Tuesday, but on a Wednesday!
This is my favorite release, and the one I do the most often by far. If i could do only one this would be it
If you live in Sarnia and would like to learn how to do soft tissue work with the Grid I can do one on one sessions. I am also a CFEA TriggerPoint master trainer and you can attend, or even host, an event here in Sarnia! This event will teach you all the releases and qualify you to teach other people.
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Transcript:
Hi welcome to Evolved Habits. Today I’m going to be showing you my favourite release on the Trigger Point Grid: the lower leg.
The lower leg is an area of several muscles and very dense connective tissue that are highly involved in locomotion. Dysfunction and overwork is common because of the shoes we wear and the positions that we are in all day. This can cause a lot of pain and discomfort in this area. We do this release in the aim of relieving it.
I also have a different problem where my big toe switches in the night while I sleep. This leaves my lower leg very tired and achy in the morning. I do this release before and that all goes away
Ok so for this release we’re going to have to split the lower leg into 2 zones. This is because our leg is simply too long for the diameter of the grid. Now the first zone is going to be from ankle to the ridge of the belly of the muscle; and the belly of the muscle itself.
Now before we get any further I want to make it clear that you should not be in any pain at all during this release. If we are this is going to cause your muscles to tight tighten; and this is going to prevent us from getting in deep and doing actual release that we want to do. We have to be in good posture: a nice open posture is important because this is a postural exercise and you’re not going to get so much from this if you are slumped over because that’s the position that you’ll release into. We also want to be nice and open because it helps us get nice deep breath. Breathing is very important while using the trigger point Grid because we need to get as much oxygen into our blood as possible to reoxygenate the areas that we are rolling. It also is important because when we exhale we create a negative pressure which helps draw the waste that in our extremities up and into our core.
OK so for this release we want to take our grid and place it perpendicular to our lower leg in the center of the zone we are rolling. We want to sit back supported by our arms in a nice open posture and place the other leg on top. Now if this isn’t enough pressure you could raise your body off the ground however that requires a lot of strength and can prevent you from relaxing so for most people it’s better just to stay with your butt on the ground. Now if this causing some pain to have your foot up on top you could take it off place it on the side. Now you also want to be careful in this position if you’re like me and you have some small children because every time my kids see me in this position they like to run up, climb on top, and get a horsey-ride. This adds a lot of pressure and doesn’t really relax so I don’t get as much from it.
Okay so for me I like to have my foot on top. Now we want to do the four knee bends nice and slow. We inhale as we pull on the up and exhale and it goes down and the grid returns towards our body
1 2 3 4
Okay. Now we do the four spans
Inhale 1 2. Inhale again 3 4
Okay that’s it. Now we’re going to want to repeat it for the next zone on the same leg and then for both zones on the opposite leg.
Okay so who is this release idea for? Obviously for anyone with tired and achy lower legs. It’s also great who does a lot of lower leg work with these muscles: such as runners.
When would perform this release? Well if they have a lot of pain and stiffness in their lower leg they are going to want to do this release before working these muscles. Why? Because the pain and stiffness will severely inhibit their ability to perform. For a runner it’s great to do this release after running so that you can push the metabolic waste up and out and help increase the speed of recovery
