You know it’s good for You but by golly, gosh and gee there is not a chance You want to spend Your Morning, Afternoon, or Evening rolling around on a Modern Day Mimicry of a Medieval Torture Device.
(Whoever knew a Sched. 80 PVC Pipe could detonate You Quad in as little as 2.43 secs?)
But like any Good Health Enthusiast, Weekend Warrior, Next-Level Athlete or Dedicated Biohacker who’s devoted their life to High Level Human Performance You find a way to carve out time in Your Schedule to dutifully put in the time under tension.
And it sure feels like You pay the price.
At some point You think You're getting somewhere but upon every returning visit it feels like You’re hitting the same tight spots and to Your surprise they still feel just as tight!
We’ve all been there.
So in this article I’m going to give You 5 Techniques that will fast-track Your way to ungluing Adhesions and fill in the gaps that have remained empty in the Fascial Release Blueprint.
5 TECHNIQUES TO ELEVATE YOUR ROLLING ROUTINE
EYES
Where are You looking?
Likely the back of Your eye-lids if You haven’t hopped on that Rumblr for a while. But if Your eyes are open they’re probably doing 1 of 2 things.
Focussing or Disassociating.
Disassociating (DVC)
Both of these states are an elevation in the Autonomic Nervous System, albeit one cues the Body into believing it is a lot closer to death than You may presently be.
The highest level is Disassociation. This is actually a branch of the Vagus Nerve making it a part of the Parasympathetic Nervous System. This is why it’s called Dorsal Ventral Vagus or DVC. It’s the original Vagus Nerve line that is still the solitary vagal branch in fish and reptiles.
When DVC is activated it acts like a Killswitch.
It;s a complete shutdown of the entire Body. This occurs because Your sense of Safety is so overwhelmed You feel trapped, terrified and ultimately believe You are going to die. So in order to make the predicted process as painless as possible, Your Body dissociates resulting in vision that can be blurry, feel distant (as if You're “somewhere else”) or lose its sense of depth.
This is also accompanied by shutting down organ function, including a pause on digestive processes and a slowing of Your cardiovascular activity. Elimination speeds up, (hopefully You don't poop Yourself too often when You begin rolling) and You’re Pain Threshold increases by flooding the Body with Endorphins and Endogenous Opiods.
This state also inherently creates a numbing effect both physically and emotionally, leans into depression and clumsiness and promotes a lack of Body Ownership, which in short makes You feel like You and Your Body are at odds with one another.
And though elevating to a level of DVC can induce all these characteristics, You can also slip into this state of being by letting Your eyes lead You there. So if You notice Your vision is blurry, depth-deprived or distant and Your Body is either rigid or floppier than that time You accidentally mistook Your Aunt’s sleeping pills for Vitamin C, You’re in Dorsal Vagus.
Focussing (Fight)
The Fight Response is 2 rungs lower on the ANS Activation Ladder. It skips Flight and brings You to a level that You feel You can handle. But whatever You're experiencing still feels like a threat. So You Knuckle Up and Bear Down on whatever is coming Your way. This is the Sympathetic Response revving up into action.
When this happens Your point of focus comes into the Foreground and everything else fades away. Whatever You have chosen to focus on now holds Your attention. Psychologically You feel like Your Survival might be jeopardized but You also feel like You have the power to defend Yourself. This mobilizes larger superficial muscles via the most frequently used neural pathways from Your past. It drives tension in the hips, shoulders, hands, neck and jaw and makes it extremely unlikely that You will make any progress on the Surface layer tissues and near impossible to influence any change on the deeper levels.
To add another layer You may be working against Yourself if the way by which You mobilize Your superficial muscles is along a neural pathway that is a faulty recruitment pattern. If this is truly the case You would be reinforcing neural networks that promote tissue dysfunction.
So what should You do instead?
Get into VVC.
VVC
What You want to do is see the Space between You and every other object in the room.
(For the most part).
This is the Hallmark of being in Ventral Vagus (VVC).
VVC is our natural state of operation.
Ground Zero.
It’s the foundational “mode” of any Human’s Autonomic Nervous System (ANS). Any other level of ANS engagement is a off-shoot of this level, and when that level of engagement has fulfilled its purpose, VVC is the level it returns too.
In VVC the eyes see everything with depth perception and to the edge of Our peripheral view while still maintaining the ability to see detail. It is associated with safety, socialization, embodiment and the opportunity to invite something new.
It’s the Gateway to integration. All the Puzzle pieces line up as the left Hemisphere synchronizes into the Right and the Neural Nets of the Body saturate the Brain with a tsunami of information. The Left Hemisphere works a million miles a minute to update movement maps as the entirety of Your Being begins to evolve.
Here the Mind becomes curious, the Body begins to explore and We open up to the possibility of solving problems in ways that we don’t yet understand but certainly do trust.
However if You find Yourself always going back to that tight Hip capsule of Yours, You are probably missing this step.
Here’s the Solution: (3 methods)
- Look from the back of Your head as if Your eyes are actually set in the back of Your skull (but still facing forward).
(Essentially just move them back 8 inches)
Try to include Your Face in Your view of the outside world.
- Exhale through Your Eyes.
(Imagery will take You a long way).
- Picture Your nose as an extendable feather. Go around and dust everything in Your path as You sweep from left to right with Your Eyes.
Include what is right in front of You and go to the farthest You can see.
Choose any method and feel Your Body relax, but still remain switched ON. Once You get the hang of it You may realize how difficult this actually is when You get into Your Myofascial Release. This is because it brings You into the Present Moment (which is hopefully safe) and whatever memories Your Brain has associated with the patterns of said moment.
And it’s not often adhesions are associated with pleasent memories.
For example, if Your Grade 6 Elementary School English Teacher stubbed his toe by surprise and You were the closest support system he had as his vice-like hand clamped Your shoulder in a crippling death grip as he said the words “SWEET MOTHER OF MOZART!” and Your best friend in the class spilled her apple juice at the same time. The tone he yelled in, the word Mozart, the smell of apple juice or the pressure of a lacrosse ball on Your Shoulder might send You Body spinning into a child-like panic.
Heaven forbid all 4 happen at once.
For some getting the eyes into VVC can be overwhelming but when You do it allows Your Fascia to integrate as a whole and cue the best decisions for release.
It also:
- Allows expression of the emotion associated with the contraction
- Release Neurological Holding patterns coming from the Amygdala
- Reduces likelihood of continued contraction post release
This is by far the biggest game-changer to getting consistent results.
BREATH
This ones easy but often overlooked.
Most of the time when we get on the roller we fall into a bunch of faulty breathing patterns including:
- Shallow Breathing (Chest Breathing)
- Valsalva Breathing (Breathing out under internal pressure)
- Holding Breath at the top or midway through an inhale
By consciously activating native breath cycles during rolling You can cue the body that it’s safe and persuade Your Muscles to relax. This is simply done by increasing the length of time on Your exhales. Ancestrally if You were running from a Tiger or running to save a family member from one, short exhales and long inhales flooded Your Blood with Oxygen very quickly giving You the upperhand as the biggest muscles of Your Body propelled Your Power forward.
When You mimic this Breath Cycle it mimics the Fight or Flight response creating rigidity within Your Connective Tissue.
When this Breath Cycle is reversed, You move back towards a state of safety allowing Your Fascia to unwind through the path of least resistance.
The Solution:
- Breathe down to Your lower ribs aiming to get 360 degree expansion. Try to increase Your Body’s circumference where Your ribs “bottom out”.
Most of Your Breath should expand out Your back.
- Double Your exhale to Your Inhale.
If You breathe in for 4 secs then breathe out for 8, If You breathe in for 6 breath out for 12. Holding Your Breath for 1-2 secs at the bottom will also help engagement of VVC.
Combining native breath cycles in conjunction with Ventral Vagus Vision is a quick way to shut down the HPA Axis and also induce Macrophage Flipping within Your Fascia. A mechanism that prevents excessive inflammation and prevents adhesion formation and tissue fibrosis. You can read all about the mechanisms involved here.
TIP-TOE THE PAIN CAVE
This is one I learned from the Supple Leopard himself. Dr. Kelly Starrett, owner and operator of The Ready State, (you can read his impressive track record here), introduced this concept when he still operated under the name MobilityWOD.
The central concept is that we are hunting for pain when we are actively rolling; but there is a balance to be held.
Just like Goldilochs we don’t want too much or too little. If we’re rolling and we can still hold a casual conversation You're selling Yourself short. If You’re grinding through the pain and silencing all Your “Get Me out of here!” signals You're actually making matters worse by reinforcing the psychological patterns that are associated with protecting Your Body via contraction.
(If You push through pain signals, Your Body will lay down more Fascia and tighten adhesions as a method of protection because Your not changing Your behaviour iby responding to the cues Your Body is giving You.)
Just as Goldilochs would have it what we’re looking for is the “Just right” feeling. A highly scientific and data-designed model that uses the “Pain-Face”.
Yep.
If Your facial expression scrunches up into pain You’re too far, zero fascial tension is too little. If You want to wince in pain but You still feel safe & embodied that’s the zone You’re looking for. However, unlike Goldiloch’s You can't fall asleep once You’ve found it. You want to keep feathering this line as Your release continues.
How do You do this?
The Solution:
- Find a tight spot, knot or target area and get to the point of a pain face (Tip-toe the Pain Cave, but don’t go inside.)
As the release continues and You slowly unwind increase the pressure or change the angle by a millimeter to bring You back to the edge of the cave.
Continue to feather this line.
If You go too far and fall into the pain cave. Back off. Simple as Pie… or porridge.
STOP MOVING
How many times have You approached rolling like it was a workout that You had to finish before the end of a Busy Day?
Just get it done.
Quickly You roll out Your Quad, IT Band, Glute, Pec, maybe Your Bicep. Up and down the roller occasionally slowing the tempo and pausing every once in a while.
I will agree that sandwiching a tender spot between an oversized rolling pin and Your Body is not something I get all too excited about either but moving quickly (an inch per second-ish) is akin to running over water instead of letting Yourself submerge until You sink down and touch the bottom.
Moving quickly means You stay on the surface layer of Your tissues preventing Yourself from accessing deeper fascial webs. Fascia wraps every tissue compartment. If You roll quickly the movement stays within the roller and never gets deeper than the surface. What You want to do is take that movement in the roller and transfer it to the tissues.
Two things happen when You do this:
1. You move into deeper tissues, (take a look at the pencil crayon example below).
2. Those tissues that You access act like a sponge. They move, flex and rearrange, dispelling the water within them (along with all the toxic metabolites and trapped waste material) and become primed to soak up fresh new water from the surrounding environment.
The only tissues in which this exchange happens are within the tissues that get touched.
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Another helpful hint that most people don’t know about is that rolling quickly over Your adhesions can actually make things worse.
But only if You run parallel to the muscle fibers, (i.e. up & down Your Quad, Calf, Bicep, Forearm, Hamstring etc.)
Why?
Fast rolling can activate Muscle spindles and the stretch reflex which increases contraction.
An adhesion that is caught in or around Your Muscle Fibers is an area where the Fascia has bunched up and shortened.
Think of a hose that has just been thrown into a pile and pulled from both ends. It loses its elasticity and it shortens as the cinch point tightens into a knot in the middle. This is similar to what an adhesion in Your Fascia does.
Muscle spindles are sensory receptors within the Muscle Belly that sense how long Your muscle is getting. When the muscle becomes too long for comfort the Muscle Spindle causes muscular contraction and prevents overstretching.
This is known as the Stretch reflex.
When You quickly roll over an adhesion, parallel to Your muscle fibers, it can actuate Your muscle spindles. Muscle Spindles have a high velocity sensitivity and react quicker to fast speeds than slow ones. On a microscopic level, rolling over an adhesion quickly lengthens the muscle fiber and because that area is already shortened due to the adhesion it activates the stretch reflex before You consciously register what's going on. This causes a contraction and increases the density of the adhesion making matters worse.
Alternatively when You go slow or don’t move at all, the pressure of the roller induces motion locally. This slowly causes a shape change keeping muscle spindles turned off and allowing Your fascia to adjust and reshape as it restructures the adhesion back into functional tissue.
Although this one is pretty easy to spell out, if placed the solution down below.
The Solution:
- Find a target tissue. You're usually looking for a dense “tight sheet”, like pulling a blanket from 2 corners, or a “taut line” like a guitar string that can range in thickness from thin string to Your finger.
Once You find it, stay on it for at least 2 mins of time, don’t move more than a mm or 2 during the whole process.
If the adhesion releases simply change the angle or the pressure. Combined with all the techniques previous You will be surprised how quickly You can make progress.
MOVE THE RIGHT WAY
Does this mean You should never move when rolling?
Au contraire.
However when You do move it’s in a very specific fashion.
It's a very slow, deliberate movement across fibers, something Elisha Celeste (min 3:35) calls “Clunks”. Essentially You’re using pressure to “peel” or “pancake” the muscle fiber apart from one another.
This is a movement method known as shearing.
When You roll in this fashion fascial cells called Fasciacytes are more likely to get caught between Your roller and the tissue You're pinning against. Fasciacytes live in clusters on the edges of the dense collagneous layers of Fascial fibers near the loose connective tissue interfaces. So when Your loading Your Fascia via slow, perpendicular shearing You are increasing the potential to stimulate Your Fasciacytes to produce Hyaluronan. This increases the restorative slide & glide function of Your fascia by increasing the amount of water it holds.
So instead of only activating Fibroblasts to restructure connective tissue, You’re also injecting sweet supple-syrup in between the interfaces of Your fascial layers.
The Solution:
- Once You’ve found a ropey adhesion, place enough pressure on it to pin it between Your bone and the roller.
Very slowly move Your body perpendicular to the direction of Your muscle and the adhesion will flop over and “clunk”.
Slow this down enough to turn this “clunk into a “squish”.
Elisha Celeste’s video above is a great example for the bicep.
SUMMARY
So that’s that. 5 simple methods to radically improve Your rolling game and unglue Your adhesions. And with practice You will see the pieces that have been missing from the MFR Puzzle come together
Enjoy finding the relationships to new tight spots!
