Make Your Body Bulletproof With S&M Squared.

All too often athletes neglect to take time investing in long term performance. Granted I’ve been known to “hack” a few shortcuts to increase my performance quickly, I always take at least 5 weeks a year to focus completely on healing and injury proofing my body for the future training demands. So while my peers are spending their off-seasons putting in hours upon hours of more swimming, biking, and running. I’m in the gym, on my foam roller, or in a yoga class making my body an ultimate endurance/strength/ninja/zombie defending, bulletproof machine. When race season does come around in early summer I will be injury-free and ready rock, all by following the S&M squared action plans explained below.

Note: By S&M squared I mean Stretch, Myofasical release, Strength, and Mobility. So get your mind out of the gutter...

Stretch

A wise man once told me: "stretching is like bathing and needs to be done regularly not just occasionally". The question for most is when to stretch? For years it is recommend that athletes stretch before physical activity, then it switched to after exercise, or a mix of both. When looking at the research it’s hard to determine which is better and why. This being said, I’ve found stretching to be most beneficial at night before bed. I find stretching before bed releases muscle tension, promotes relaxation, improves range-of-motion, and above all ends the day nicely.

Action plan:

Join a yoga class, while this is not as important when sport-specific training ramps up, I do recommend practicing at least once a week in the offseason. Beyond the flexibility benefits yoga can help with breathing technique, stress, blood pressure, body awareness, strength, coordination, and balance.
Make a habit of stretching before bed, pay close attention to particularly tight areas.

Myofascial Release

If you’re any kind of athlete (bodybuilder, crossfitter, triathlete, football player, etc) you should be getting regular soft tissue massage also known as myofascial release. In a perfect world you should be getting a massage from an experienced sport massage therapist however, this can get very expensive and impractical. For this reason I highly recommend self-mysocial release via a foam roller, massage ball, or the affordable lacrosse ball. Self-mysocial release can be done anytime of the day, although I encourage athletes to “roll out” before and/or after a workout.

Action Plan:

Foam roll before any workout that require your legs. Weather that be a leg day in the gym, a run, or a bike ride.
After the workout do a quick “once-over” roll on your legs to check for any tight areas, if you find some roll them out!
Break out the foam roller throughout your day to roll out any tight areas you find. Focus on both the lower and upper body.

Strength

When it comes to making your body bulletproof, strength training isn’t a matter of how much you can lift, but rather a way to challenge and build your muscles in new areas. Endurance athletes in particular tend to have weak hips, shoulders, and core which can easily lead to injury if not identified and worked on. Additionally I regularly notice in my practice that individuals rarely think "outside the box" with strength training. By outside the box I mean challenging the body in new ways such as balance, flexibility, and range of motion. For example: instead of doing body weight squats in a strength workout, do squats while balancing on an upside down bosu ball, once that becomes easy try sqauts with your hands on your head, and so on. Believe me there is always a way to challenge your body in new ways, doing this regualrly builds a body that can withstand hard physical trianing.

Action Plan:

Spend some time in the off-season to strengthen your body and continue to maintain strength in the in-season.
Continually find ways to (safely) challenge your body in the weight room.
Use stability discs, bosu balls, stability balls, TRX’s, and any equipment that requires you to stabilize and balance your body to perform a movement.

Mobility Work

I would like to think of mobility and flexibility as 2 sides of the same coin. This being said just because somepnd is flexible doesn’t necessarily mean they have good mobility. Mobility goes beyond how limber someone is, rather mobility involves trunk (or core) strength, balance, coordination, and muscle balance. As the godfather of mobilization Kelly Starrett explains in his awesome and highly recommended book Becoming a Supple Leopard “mobilization is a tool to globally address movement and performance problems”. With this in mind, mobility (just like the 3 things above) needs to be practiced regularly as a proactive and not reactive measure when you found yourself injured.

Action plan:

Practice all of the other 3 points above (stretching, myofascial release, and Strength training).
Go through this article and watch every video.
Buy Becoming a Supple Leopard to learn everything you need to know about exercise technique and mobility.
Buy Kelly Starrett's new book Ready to Run if you're an endurance athlete who has ever had injury.