Can Foam Rolling Give You a Mental Boost?

How self-massage tools can help your muscles—and your mind—unwind

By Cindy Kuzma March 10, 2016

 

Get in the habit of rollin' out kinks if you want to kick your brain into gear. Bicycling.com

Some cyclists think of foam rolling as a necessary evil at best, a tortuous experience at worst. Elite runner Chelsea Reilly Sodaro, however, views the 30 to 45 minutes she spends daily on foam rolling and other forms of self-therapy as a much-needed release from the stress and tension of hard training

“At the end of the day, I pull my foam roller out when I’m watching TV with my husband,” says Sodaro, 27, who trains with Furman Elite in Greenville, South Carolina. “I can spend time with him and we can unwind. It’s a nice opportunity to multitask a little bit and to end my training day.” 

Top of Form

Self-myofascial release—the technical term for techniques like foam rolling and the use of stick-like self-massagers—seems to improve range of motion, ease soreness, and enhance recovery, according to recent research reviews in Current Sports Medicine Reports and the Journal of Bodywork & Movement Therapies. Many athletes also find using the tools calms their minds and gives them a powerful sense of control over their health and recovery Ultimately, these positive mental states often translate into improved performances. “When we feel better, we do better; when we do better, we feel better,” says Robyn LaLonde, M.S., coach and co-owner of EDGE Athlete Lounge in Chicago. “It’s not going to fix an injury but it might prevent one, and it will make you feel like you have control over the process.”

By easing pain and stiffness, foam rolling may reduce levels of stress-related hormones like cortisol, LaLonde says. A regular self-massage routine also provides athletes with a critical tool for coping with physical setbacks, she notes. Imagine two cyclists who feel a new twinge during the taper before a big race; one foam rolls every day, while the other lets her roller gather dust in the corner. The regular roller won’t panic, because she has a proactive way to address her issue—plus an understanding of the time, technique, and pressure that work for her. Meanwhile, the other cyclist may first freak out, then overdo it with the foam roller to compensate.

Some have even speculated that the fascia—the web of tissue that covers and connects muscles and internal organs—carry sensory data and emotions travel just like nerves do. That means rolling over and releasing knots and kinks could transmit positive messages directly to the brain, providing an emotional boost that leads to faster performance, says Greg McMillan, M.S., an exercise physiologist and running coach in Flagstaff, Arizona.

Scientists have yet to prove all of these psychological perks. One small pilot study, published in 2014 in the Journal of Physical Therapy Science, found no differences in cortisol levels between women who foam rolled for 30 minutes and those who merely reclined for the same period of time. But regardless of the research, Sodaro says the confidence she derives from her routine compels her to haul her foam roller everywhere she travels (she ties her stretching rope around it and loops it over the handle of her carry-on bag).

Completing the same rope-stretching, rolling, and dynamic activation moves before each hard workout and race keeps Sodaro focused and primed to perform her best. “It’s like any aspect of training. You’ll find when an athlete really buys into a coaching philosophy, they are way more likely to be successful than if they’re constantly questioning what they’re doing,” she says. “Same goes for me with my self-care and foam-rolling protocol. If I believe foam rolling is going to help me stay healthy and be more prepared, that’s almost just as important as the physical benefits.”

What Happens to Your Lungs When You Ride

Your airbags help get the oxygen you need to where you need it, when you need it most. Here’s how they work.

By selene yeager July 29, 2016

MD Delwar Hossain

There’s a reason fitness is measured in terms of VO2 max, the highest rate of oxygen your body can consume during maximal or exhaustive exercise: To perform physical activity like riding a bike, especially if you want to go far and/or fast, your body needs to consume a lot of oxygen. The more oxygen you can circulate to burn fat and keep your aerobic energy production churning, the longer and faster you can ride without fatiguing. 

“VO2 is a function of how efficiently you breathe,” says Paul W. Davenport, PhD, distinguished professor in the Department of Physiological Sciences at the University of Florida, who specializes in the study of the respiratory response to exercise. Which, of course, is where the lungs come in. Here’s how they work.

1/7 mnchilemom via Flickr

​Your lungs inflate

Your lungs are like fleshy hydration-pack bladders that inflate when you breathe into them. Their primary job is drawing in oxygen-rich air and expelling carbon-dioxide waste generated by your cells. That gas-exchange happens in the alveoli—microscopic, grape-like sacs that line your lungs.

As you start to pedal, you pull air into your lungs and alveoli and they expand like a tire being pumped. Oxygen-depleted blood passes into the lungs, dumping off its carbon dioxide in exchange for fresh oxygen, and then goes back into the heart to be pumped into your muscles.

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​You use more lung space

As you ride, especially when you go harder—like hammering a paceline or climbing a hill—your muscles’ energy-producing mitochondria need more oxygen, so you have to extract more from the lungs. Your heart rate goes up and your stroke volume increases so there’s more blood pouring through the lungs. You not only breathe faster, but also breathe more deeply to expand and enlarge your alveoli, so you have greater oxygen exchange with every breath.

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​Your abs spring into action

Drawing deeper breaths expands and enlarges your alveoli, but there’s a price to pay, says Davenport. “It’s more work and uses more of your body’s energy,” comparable to pumping up a tire: It’s fairly easy to inflate your bike tires to the lower end of their recommended psi range, but as you approach the upper limits, it takes more force to pump in each pound.

To assist, your body recruits your expiratory muscles—primarily your abdominals—to blow out more air faster, so you can get more in faster.

“Normally, you sit at a baseline midpoint, where you still have some air in your lungs—your expiratory reserve—when you exhale,” says Davenport. “When you’re exercising, you use part of that expiratory reserve and blow out more than you would at rest.”

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​Your diaphragm pulls in more air

After you actively exhale using part of your expiratory reserves, your lungs are small and deflated like shrunken balloons, leaving you more space to fill with the oxygen-rich air your working muscles demand. That task is performed by your inspiratory muscles, which are your intercostals (the muscles between your ribs) and your diaphragm, a thin parachute-shaped muscle at the base of your lungs. 

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​You inhale more gunk

As your oxygen demands increase, you need to switch the input from the two small holes in your face that can only expand so far to the one that can gape wide-open for maximum oxygen intake.

Problem is, as you switch from nose- to mouth-breathing, you lose your filtering system.

“Your nose filters, warms and humidifies the air,” says Davenport. Lacking the same fine-hair filtration system as your nose, your mouth lets in considerably more microscopic material that would normally be filtered out. That’s why some off-road riders will pull a Buff or bandana over their mouths during particularly dusty parts of the ride.

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​You push out more gunk

You know that “racer cough” you sometimes develop after hard efforts? Barring exercise-induced asthma, it’s likely just your lungs clearing themselves.

“When you’re blowing out air faster, you can blow some things out of your airway that would typically come out more slowly at rest,” says Davenport. When gunk reaches your trachea, it triggers a cough to expel it. Naturally, if you’ve been sucking in more debris than usual from taking deep breaths through your mouth, you’ll have more debris (and built-up mucous that surrounds it) to expel. 

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7/7 Michael Bentley via Flickr

​Your respiratory muscles get stronger

All that hard work makes your respiratory muscles stronger than they would be if you didn’t ride or exercise. In one study published in Respiratory Physiology and Neurobiology, researchers found that 12 weeks of high-intensity interval training could make small but significant improvements in the abdominal expiratory muscles as well as the diaphragm. 

For more measureable improvements, you can target these muscles with specific training, says Davenport. Devices like the PowerLung create resistance for both your inspiratory and expiratory muscles to make them stronger. In a review of respiratory training studies published in Sports Medicine, researchers from Switzerland found that respiratory muscle training improved endurance performance in tests to exhaustion, with those who were less fit to begin with and those who participate in ultra-endurance events.

Tags: health & injuriesexercisefit zone

5 New Ways to Minimize Muscle Soreness

Try these fresh techniques to make gains without the pain

By selene yeager October 24, 2016

Shutterstock

We've all had that moment when we try to get out of bed after a tough workout— and can't. While you’re bound to feel a little muscle soreness after pushing your limits, especially if it’s an activity you don’t typically do (read: day after new CrossFit class…), hard workouts don’t have to leave you hurting for days. By taking a few steps to minimize inflammation and speed muscle repair, you can feel good again in no time flat. Along with the tried and true post-workout massage (and maybe a dip in a cool pool), here are five fresh ways to keep sore muscles at bay.

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Get Juiced

Watermelon juice is the new ibuprofen. The juice of this popular picnic treat is not only delicious and hydrating, but also brimming with the amino acid L-citrulline, which stimulates blood flow so your muscles get more nutrients and oxygen and can repair faster. In a study published in the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry, researchers found that men who drank about a pint of watermelon juice before a hard indoor cycling session reported significantly less muscle soreness the following day than they did when they were given a pink-colored placebo drink before the same workout.

Not so into watermelon? Pour some tart cherry juice instead. Tart cherries reduce uric acid levels and act as an anti-inflammatory. Research on endurance runners found that runners who drank tart cherry juice twice a day had far less post-race muscle pain following a strenuous event than those drinking a ruby-colored placebo drink.

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Try Passive Stimulation

You need blood flow to expedite muscle recovery, which is why super-chill recovery rides make you feel better. But you can’t spin your legs 24/7, and it’s easy to overdo it on a recovery ride, which will just add to your fatigue. That’s why sports medicine guru Nicholas DiNubile, MD, author of Framework, has his athletes use an electrical muscle stimulation (EMS) machine like the Marc Pro. Just place the electrodes on your legs and turn up the dials. The currents stimulate your muscles to contract, which pumps out waste and brings in oxygen- and nutrient-rich blood to facilitate muscle recovery and capillary development.

“You can do this immediately off the bike, and it facilitates recovery without adding fatigue,” says DiNubile. These machines are commonly found in physical therapy offices—or you can invest in your own for about $650.

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Refuel with Healthy Fats

Hard training causes muscle stress and damage, which increases inflammation and leads to soreness. Healthy fats (like the omega-3 fatty acids found in fatty fish, nuts, and seeds) fight inflammation, so including these foods in your recovery meals may help stop (or at least minimize) muscle pain before it happens. The USDA recommends eating at least 8 ounces of seafood a week, so following this advice will also help you get the omega-3s you need for general health and to reduce your risk of heart disease.

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Pump up Your Protein

You already know that you need ample amounts of protein: About 25 percent of your daily calories (or about 20 to 30 grams with each meal or snack) should come from this muscle-building macronutrient. Research shows that timing your protein with your hard workouts, specifically including a little protein during your workout, also can help promote muscle repair and minimize muscle soreness.

In one study, cyclists who took carbohydrate/protein gels during time trials not only rode longer during the test itself, but also had lower levels of post-exercise creatine kinease (CK), a marker of muscle damage, after they were done. Less muscle damage means less soreness and faster recovery. Try chia during your workout, or a smoothie with this tasty whey protein afterwards. 

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Get Grounded

Those barefoot runners might be onto something that has nothing to do with improving their form (though that may happen, too). It turns out that direct contact with the earth can help the body fight free-radical damage, heal more quickly, and minimize delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS). Stick with us here—the surface of the Earth has a negative electric charge that balances out a buildup of excess positive charge, and offers free electrons to help neutralize rogue free radicals. Until recently, we had regular contact with the Earth through gardening, walking barefoot, and spending more time outdoors. Today, many of us have lost that contact, which may be to our detriment.

Sounds new-age-y, we know. But it's hard to argue with how good it feels to spend time outside, whether it is in the form of a beach vacation or a few days camping out. There are also scientific studies showing that grounding really works for lowering stress, improving sleep, and minimizing exercise-induced muscle pain. In a series of studies, researchers found that exercisers who spent time grounding themselves with special conductive grounding patches after strenuous exercise sessions had fewer markers of muscle damage and lower levels of DOMS pain than those receiving fake grounding treatments.

“Of course it is best to be outdoors barefoot or bathing in the ocean or a lake,” says grounding researcher Gaetan Chevalier, PhD, director of the Earthing Institute. “However, this is not always possible, so there are products [like Earthing bands, sheets, and mats] to help you be grounded when it is not possible to get outdoors, like the winter or when you’re too busy. Personally, I like to sleep grounded because we have to sleep anyway and it gives you 6 to 8 hours of grounding without any special effort.”

8 Things About Cycling That Get Better With Age

Many of your best days are still ahead of you, no matter how old you are—here's why

By selene yeager

Cycling is indeed different as you get older: it gets a lot better. Shutterstock

Sports often reward the young. So much so that when pros start pushing the upper edges of their 30s (and certainly when still competing into their 40s), it’s not just noteworthy, but downright newsworthy. Well, not only are the Kristin Armstrongs (third time consecutive Olympic gold medalist at age 43) of the world proving that if you work hard you’ve got decades worth of ass-kicking capability, but also experience shows us that there are so many other, less-heralded (but just as rewarding) advantages to being an older athlete that make every ride richer, no matter how many years you’ve been rolling along. Here are our favorites.

1/8 Rachel Samanyi via Flickr

 

You really appreciate the ride

As time passes, you become more aware of the passing of time and thus time, especially on a bike, becomes more precious. You begin to really appreciate the sound of your tires on the road, the view of blue skies and puffy clouds, and being one with your ride and your surroundings.     

2/8 Brampton Cyclist via Flickr

Minor mishaps are no big deal

Flat tires, broken chains, sliced sidewalls, oh my! Meh. At this point, you’ve seen nearly every type of mechanical; got caught out in the pouring rain (and probably hail), ran out of food and bonked your brains out, drained your bottles with no refills in sight for at least another hour, and so forth. You know how to assess the situation, regroup, and roll with it. (Looking to get the most out of your rides?

3/8 Parker Knight via Flickr

You've built a really big community

The longer you ride, the more riders you meet. Annual charity rides, centuries, and races start to resemble family reunions as your cycling circle expands. By the time you hit your 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s and beyond, you’ve amassed a community of riding friends and acquaintances that may span multiple states, if not countries.   

4/8 Gustavo Devito via Flickr

Not every ride needs to be a race

Though a little decline in power and speed is inevitable over time, you can still go plenty hard no matter your age. The difference now is you know you don’t always need to go hard, and you appreciate the importance of rest and recovery for staying strong.

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You've got some serious mileage in your legs

Muscle memory is a marvelous thing. As a seasoned cyclist, you can pretty much saddle up and ride for a few hours without much ado because at this point in your riding, you’re extremely efficient and experienced.

Layering is a breeze

6/8 Jaan via Flickr

Layering is a breeze

Fifty-two degrees and slightly overcast? You know the exact arm warmer/base layer/jersey/glove combo to keep you cozy in those conditions—and pretty much all others.

7/8 Phil Gradwell via Flickr

You know what you like

You’ve tried every bar width, wheel size, frame material, saddle width, pedal-cleat combination, and set-up to know what works for you. That’s not to say you’re closed-minded to new innovation; you just know what you like. You’re also not going to hop on the “next big thing” without a critical eye.

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You defy expectations

Cycling keeps you young, right down to your DNA—that’s a scientifically proven fact. Endurance-trained folks like cyclists have longer telomeres—the protective end caps on your DNA strands, the length of which are directly related to longevity—than their sedentary peers. In fact, they have telomeres that aren’t all that much shorter than their younger endurance-trained peers. That’s why people do a double take when you tell them your age…and that never gets old.

The Ideal Resting Period for Cyclists

To come back stronger than ever next season, you need to make sure you're resting right

By Dr Jeroen Swart October 19, 2016

If you don't rest properly in the off season, you might be setting yourself up for an energy crash. Shutterstock

All athletes need an off-season to recover from the physical and mental stress that training and racing imparts on the body. Even if you aren't training hard, a lack of any form of break will almost always lead to staleness and reduced performance.

There's much debate about what constitutes an optimal rest period, and what one should and shouldn't do in the off-season. In the past, many top pros would stop training altogether, for up to a few months. This resulted in some of them gaining a lot of weight and then struggling to lose that weight in the first half of the European season.

Weight gain is only one side effect of adopting a totally sedentary lifestyle in the off-season; an additional aspect is the loss of many of the training adaptations gained during the previous year. Still, a short period of inactivity—two to three weeks of rest—won't reverse the chronic adaptive changes you worked so hard for.

However, two to three months of inactivity can result in an almost complete reversal of training gains. With an excessively long period of inactivity, riders will be unlikely to deliver better performances, as they'll effectively be starting training again from scratch. In contrast, building on the previous season's gains can result in a progressive improvement over a period of five to eight years, and an eventual peak of performance that would not otherwise have been possible. (We term this a "chronic training adaptation.")

What constitutes an optimal off-season?
The general consensus at this time is that a few weeks of active rest are sufficient to allow psychological and physical recovery from the stresses of the previous season. By "active rest," we mean lower-intensity activities that differ to those that you'd do during the season. These could include hiking, swimming, surfing, rock climbing and other fun activities. If you participate primarily in road racing, then some relaxed mountain bike riding can also be included, or vice versa.

The exact duration of the rest period should be determined by how long and strenuous your previous season was. However, a few weeks should suffice; and in general, when you feel energized and enthusiastic once more about the coming season, then you're probably ready to start training again.

This will then take you into the pre-season conditioning period. In the past, this has largely meant low-intensity training, combined with strength and stability work in the gym. A new approach now gaining acceptance is the incorporation of intermittent high-intensity training in the pre-season. Recent research has demonstrated that this is effective in maintaining many performance adaptations that would otherwise be lost if you waited until later in the season before doing high-intensity interval training again.

This article originally appeared in the February 2015 issue of Bicycling South Africa.

Tags: exercisefitnessrecoverytraining plans