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![]() ![]() Don’t move until the sore spot relaxes! It’s that simple. Hold the position until the GTO fires (15-30 seconds) and the sore spot relaxes by at least 70%. This soreness represents the tension created both by the stretch and the resultant defensive contraction. Move along the contour of the muscle until you find a sore spot. You apply pressure to the affected area using your body-weight against the roller, ball, etc. While the science behind SMR may be a bit intense for the casual reader, the technique is really quite simple. The muscle will be softer and more flexible at resting tension and less prone to overuse. Over time, the threshold for engaging the muscles spindles (the amount of tension required to make them fire) can be raised back to a normal level. Each time the GTO fires, in has an inhibitory effect on the spindles. With SMR, you stimulated the spindles to fire, you hold the position until the golgi tendon organs make the muscle relax, then you move on. With all of this in mind, let’s go back to SMR. These muscles, or portions of muscles are often tight, hard, and sore to press on. That is to say, it takes very little tension to make the muscle contract in defense. Chronically tight muscles often have an extremely low threshold for stimulating the spindles. Flexibility issues are frequently, in part, due to improper thresholds at which these structures send their messages to the brain. If you sustain that tension for a while, or the combined tension of the stretch and contraction is too great, the golgi tendon organ sends its message to the brain, instructing it to make the muscle relax. When a muscle is stretched too far or too fast, the muscle spindle sends a message to the brain telling it to make the muscle contract to avoid overstretching or tearing. Each detects the same things, but with the respective messages they send in response, the brain does two very different things. There are two primary types of intrafusal fibers pertaining to muscles: muscle spindles and golgi tendon organs (GTO). This information is also used for protection of the very muscles these fibers inhabit. This feedback allows the brain to determine the position of your limbs in 3-dimensional space. The brain uses this information for multiple purposes. They communicate with the brain… relaying messages pertaining to muscle length, tension, and the rate of change of both. Intrinsic muscle fibers serve a different purpose. Extrinsic muscle fibers are what we traditionally think of as muscle fibers… they contract, relax and effect movement. ![]() ![]() There are two primary types of skeletal muscle tissue: extrinsic and intrinsic. To understand how SMR works, one needs to understand some basic muscle physiology. SMR accomplishes a number of things… it softens tight, painful tissues, inhibits over-active muscles, reduces your tissues’ resistance to movement, re-models deranged connective tissue, improves both blood and lymph circulation, and even makes other types of stretching more effective. The stretches are performed using SMR implements such as foam rollers and tennis balls. Self-myofascial release (SMR) is roughly tantamount to giving one’s self a deep-tissue massage, only no therapist is required and you don’t pay by the hour. However, there is one type of stretching appropriate to nearly all bodies, at all levels of function and all levels of fitness… self-myofascial release. All types of stretching exist on a continuum… you progress from one to another as your tissues and your fitness regimen progress. Each has their uses in an integrated, progressive flexibility regimen. There are many, including some types you may have heard of: static, active, dynamic, active-isolated, passive, proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation (PNF), ballistic and others. ![]()
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