Touch Your Toes with the Maestro Part 3: The Soft Tissue Issue
So, as much as I love treating folks with primarily stability-motor control dysfunctions, some of you out there can’t touch your toes because you’ve truly got some mobility issues. Not as fun or quick to fix, but still very much treatable.
So, today’s post is all about addressing those soft tissue issues. First and foremost, be nice! Absolutely no need to go smashing away at your tissues, thinking that you’re ‘breaking up’ adhesions and scar tissues. It takes hundreds to thousands of pounds of force to do that…so, yeah. It ain’t happening. What you are doing is tapping into the nervous system by imparting a force that is picked up by the receptors within the fascia. These receptors send a signal to your brain which then reflexively sends a signal back to that area telling those tissues to relaxxxxx. Best way to do this? Be EASY. Aggressive treatments scare your nervous system and make things tighten up before they finally relax after realizing that you’re not actually being killed. If you can’t breathe while doing your soft tissue work (puhlease see Parts 1 and 2) then you’re being too aggressive!
The pin and stretch/tack and floss technique that I briefly demonstrate is a nice way to tap into the mechanical aspect of soft tissue work, where we look to improve the sliding of interfaces within the tissues. I repeat, SLIDING. Not breaking things up. Improving ‘length’ by improving sliding and decreasing tone.
I realize that I totally flew through the demo on the video, but instagram only allows for 1 minute of chatting, and the Maestro had a lot to say, so, forgive me. The take-home message was simply that there’s more to improving your toe-touch than smashing your hamstrings. That superficial backline runs the full length of the back of your body, and tension anywhere along it can limit your mobility.
How much should you do? As much as you feel you need. But since people like numbers, I generally recommend about 2-3 minutes per area. Remember we’re talking to the nervous system, not breaking things apart, which means we don’t need to spend hours in one spot.
Tomorrow night, part 4. Stay tuned