How To Get Out Of Pain And Improve Your Lifting

The Use of Soft Tissue Release Techniques In Powerlifting

Are You In Pain?

Most powerlifters will experience pain or tightness in the muscle or joint at some point in there lifting career.

These issues stem from underlying weakness, spikes in training load and/or intensity and improper technique. A lot of the issues are quite minor but can progress to something more sinister if left unchecked, in a period of months you could find yourself going from full training to being on the sidelines “rehabbing” an injury. If you find you are in pain you will often look for a solution to try to improve it in preparation for your training session, these solutions can be a little hit and miss. They will have most feeling they haven’t quite hit the mark but they train anyway and suck up the pain through the session hoping it will resolve itself. Invariably it doesn’t.

The practice of aimlessly foam rolling comes to mind.

You Are Doing It All Wrong!

If you were to look around most gyms, whether they are full of gen-pop or high performance training facilities you see the same things everywhere when people are preparing to lift.

• Foam rolling of the upper back (rolling back and forwards)

• Foam rolling the quads with no visible pressure being applied

• Foam rolling the hamstrings in a seated position

It has almost become a parroting tick box process whereby people watch others doing it, believe they are doing something of value but in reality achieving very little, and it is most definitely not going to address any pain or joint restrictions you have.

The above process is really ineffective for Powerlifter’s, it is not hyper focused on the areas that are causing the most issue and causing the overload, it is not deep enough to give enough ‘signal’ to the brain to change muscular tone and allow for greater stretch tolerance of the muscle, and the tools used are not flexible enough to target the correct anatomy and magnify the first two points.

The New Approach (That Isn’t So New)

Using targeted soft tissue techniques appears to be a really novel approach with the majority of lifters I work with but the philosophies have been around and used in other sports for a really long time.

Take Powerlifting and strength training in general, it goes through cycles, where certain practices and training methods appear new and novel so gain traction and interest then they gradually get absorbed and slowly the processes are still used but the rationale for using them is lost.

In the world of soft tissue techniques Dr Kelly Starrett brought manual therapy techniques to the strength training world and modified them so they could be used without the use of a therapist. When Mobility-Wod was at its height of popularity gyms everywhere were using the methods to improve pain, range of motion and function and it was all related to the lifting. Hyper specific drills using a whole host of different tools was the norm and now it has been absorbed into the culture the understanding has been lost so you end up with a lot of mimicking of behaviours rather than thoughtful application of the tools and how they could help you.

The Philosophies

A lot of the philosophies run parallel to those of Dan Pfaff in the track and field world and the use of Performance Therapy to get athletes consistently performing at the highest levels day in day out. If you are ever in the mood to read outside of Powerlifting take a look at the Altis website and see what the best practitioners in the world do to keep some of the fastest and most powerful athletes healthy and performing to an elite level.

Both use extensive soft tissue release techniques to prepare athletes for the rigours of training and keep them following ‘Plan A’ as often as possible. Soft tissue techniques in this setting are used to;

• Improve stretch tolerance of the muscle

• Decrease pain

• Improve joint range of motion

• Improve biomechanics for increased transfer of strength and power

In the most simple of terms is all controlled by the brain, the brain is the central governor when it comes to pain, muscle tone and ultimately strength.

If the area in question is sensitised the brain is the reason for that, and will turn the volume up to those particular muscles and drive increased pain, tone and limit strength expression. Soft tissue release is effectively communicating with the brain to tell it to turn the volume down to the affected areas.

But it requires the right tools, pressure, angles and time.

The Tools and The Applications

The Tools

What they are looking for is a positive outcome that allows for incredibly high quality training to be completed. This comes from applying the right amount of pressure in the correct areas at the correct angle. To do this it will require a range of different tools.

Tools such as;

• Hockey/Lacrosse Balls

• Golf Balls

• Broom Handles

• Knobblers (not as strange as it sounds)

• Medicine Balls

Mechanical Pressure

Mechanical pressure is effectively how much force you put through the muscle with the tools you are using.

There are mixed schools of thought on this but for me and the population I have spent my entire professional life working with, I believe you need lots of pressure. The subjective feedback is always much more positive when more mechanical pressure is applied, not less. This is due to the levels of muscle mass lifters tend to have and the ‘depth’ that has to be achieved to get the desired result.

The Angles

Mechanical pressure is the first part of application, the second is the angle of pressure.

The method of achieving higher quality results hinges on the angle being correct. I like to visualise this as a clamping down of the muscle against the underlying skeleton. And that is where the correct tools come in.

As an example you would use the following for different areas of the body.

Pectorals - Broomstick - Downward Angled Pressure

Quads - Hockey Ball - Direct Pressure

Glutes - Medicine Ball - Lateral Angled Pressure

It takes a bit of trial and error but when you are on the spot and getting a high quality response you will know.

Time

Lastly will be the amount of time to spend on each release for the optimum results.

I usually think somewhere between 60-90s is adequate but there are exceptions. If you have a very high tone muscle you may need to spend longer, plus the more chronic or how old the issue is the more time will need to be spent restoring optimal muscle tone. I have been know to spend 5 minutes on a specific area to achieve the desired results. But a word of caution here, you can cause muscle damage by applying too much pressure for too long, you must be very certain if you find you are using lots of pressure for a long period of time.

What To Look Out For

To know whether you have had the desired effect from the soft tissue work you want to look out for the following sensations.

1. Decrease in pain from the start of applying pressure to the end

2. Decrease in tone, the feeling of the muscle ‘melting’ away

3. Immediate increase in range of motion

4. Improved technical proficiency what performing the lifts

If you are aware of these things you can be sure you have done a good job.

Then begins the process of refinement and becoming more body aware, understanding of anatomy and biomechanics will improve this even further and you will become surgeon like in your application of soft tissue release.