ACTIVE RELEASE TECHNIQUES

One of my main goals following hip surgery was to restore movement and mobility of my hip, but not just to the level that it was at previously…I wanted to exceed my previous levels!  Proper movement doesn’t just feel better, it actually results in improved training, increased resistance to injury, and improved restoration and recovery from training (not to mention the obvious longevity benefits).

My surgery cleared up the movement limitation related to my bone structure, now I have to deal with the limitation related to my soft tissue structure (muscle, fascia, tendons, etc.).

This is where Active Release Techniques (ART) come into play!

Taken straight from the website, ART is a “soft tissue system of movement based massage technique that treats problems with muscles, tendons, ligaments, fascia and nerves.”  Muscles and other soft tissues can develop tough, dense scar tissue in areas as a result of acute conditions (pulls, tears, collisions), accumulation of small tears (micro-trauma), and from a lack of oxygen (hypoxia).  This scar tissue restricts tissues that need to be able to move freely and as a result muscles can become shorter and weaker, tension on tendons can cause inflammation, and nerves can become trapped.

So, I found an ART provider right by my office and made an appointment to get checked out.  This guy performed a very thorough battery of tests to assess my movement quality and to determine areas where I may have issues.  Not surprisingly, my hamstrings were tight, my hip flexors and hip rotators were tight, my pelvis was in poor alignment (anterior tilt) and my mobility was pretty bad as a result.  I do sit at a desk all day, which pretty much explains every one of those conditions!  Although I do foam rolling (a form of soft tissue work) and mobility almost every day, that only takes about 15 minutes.  Conversely, I am sitting down at my desk every weekday from about 8:00 am to 6:00 pm (10 hours), plus roughly an hour roundtrip commute…11 hours everyday in the seated position.  This is a big problem!!  I can do all the soft tissue work in the world and this ART practitioner can work his magic on my affected areas, but if I keep up the same behavior that caused the problems in the first place, none of it will matter!

Back to my ART session….  As part of the assessment, I had to lie on my back while he pushed my knee towards my chest (the other leg remained flat).  It didn’t come very close to my chest, and he said it was due to my anterior pelvic tilt (top of my pelvis was tilted forward as a result of excessively tight hip flexors).  With my pelvis in that position, my hip will essentially hit a “road block” before it can be flexed fully.  To treat this, he put manual pressure on my hip flexors while my hip and knee were in the flexed position.  I then performed a series of contract-relax motions (while he resisted my movement so my leg wasn’t actually going anywhere) and after each contract sequence he would push my knee further towards my chest.  After just 3 attempts, my knee was able to move all the way up to my chest with ease!!  I was in uncharted territory!!

There were several other tests that I initially failed and then magically passed after just a few minutes of soft tissue manipulation.  Now don’t get me wrong, the changes he was able to make are not permanent.  In fact, if I don’t work hard to maintain this soft tissue quality and movement it will all have been for naught.  After all, I will create soft tissue “damage” every time I train, but now it will be up to me to manage this damage as well as I possibly can.

There was also one of those “it’s a small world” moments at my first appointment.  As soon as I walked in, he introduced himself to me and said “you look familiar.”  I figured he was just trying to be personable, so I responded “well maybe, but this is my first time in this gym.”  He then asked me if I train in jiu jitsu over at Carlos Machado’s, and I said F*CK YEAH I DO!  This guy is actually a purple belt under Carlos Machado!!

As if this situation couldn’t get any better, this guy offices in the Telos Fitness Center, which is a bad-ass gym, and they just happen to have 2,500 sf of jiu jitsu mats down in the basement of the facility!  I had two appointments with this guy last week for ART, and after the second appointment we went downstairs and rolled (that’s jiu jitsu for “practiced”) for an hour.  Since he’s a purple belt, he could toss me around quite a bit (he’s also pretty big…about my height but about 225 lbs compared to my 195 lbs), but he also taught me quite a few things.  We’re going to try to get some weekly rolling in!