If you like this post and suffer from muscle and joint pain, then you need to check out the Ultimate Self Massage Guide. It details exactly how to release all the important muscles in your body with a tennis ball and foam roller. This knowledge will enable you to treat your own pain at home, get rid of your symptoms without spending money on a therapist, and move and feel better.
We spoke recently about stretching tight quadriceps and why it’s probably a good idea, to take that one step further today we’ll look into myofascial release for tight quadriceps. The fascia is the connective tissue that surrounds your muscles in your body. It is a thick sheath and it can get tight and troublesome just like muscles can. Stretching will work your muscles, but it will rarely have a great effect on your fascia. In order to get a complete stretch and release for your quadriceps you will need to do some myofascial release. The two forms that we will be looking at today will be with the foam roller and the tennis ball. Both of these are very easy and cheap to use at home and will have a profound effect on your tissue quality in your quadriceps.
Foam Rolling for Tight Quadriceps
Foam rolling on your quads is not a difficult process, but for those that haven’t done it before it can be quite painful. You should roll the length of your upper leg, from just above the knee cap to just under the hip joint. move slighting lateral and medial to make sure you hit all of your quad muscles. The rec fem, which is the one that crosses both the knee and the hip joint if often the most troublesome, and the most superficial, and this is the one you can access the best with a foam roller. Here is a short video showing you how to foam roll your quadriceps. Try to go up and down the length of your quad 10 times at least on each side. You really can’t do too much, so experiment and see how tight your muscles are, you will definitely feel a release.
This video uses a different foam roller than I recommend (thera roll, check in out in the sidebar), but the theory is the same. The thera roll is smaller and you would do one leg at a time.
Tennis Ball Massage For Quadriceps
This is a similar concept to the foam roller however it is a deeper soft tissue treatment and it can target various trigger points you have in the body. You should lay down and put the tennis ball beneath your quadriceps. You can run up the length of your quads similar to the foam roller, but the idea is to find trigger points. You will know when you hit one, because you will feel a more intense pain. Hold it on that exact spot, trigger points are released via pressure, and a tennis ball places a lot of pressure on one small point. You will feel the trigger point releasing and the pain starting to go away, it may take seconds or it may take minutes. Grit your teeth and keep going because trigger points can refer pain to other parts of the body and you definitely want them released.
These two modalities are perfect for use at home, they are cheap and easy and will save you a lot of massage and treatments costs. Myofascial release in combination with stretching will ensure your tissue quality in the quads is high and you will help yourself be pain and injury free.
Check out The Ultimate Self Massage Guide for more information on how to release your quads…and the rest of your body! If you don’t want to buy the full version and just want some good quad information, you are in luck! Sign up to the mailing list and find out how to release your quads for free! it’s the free section I am giving away!