Hitch Fit Living Magazine Volume 6 - May/June 2016 | Page 46
A foam roller is a fitness apparatus that will enhance your results in the gym! As you may or may not
know the muscles actually grow outside of the gym through recovery and nutrition. Working out simply
supplies a demand for your muscles to grow. Recovery is the most important factor for your muscles to
grow.
After you work hard in the gym you must supply your body with the nutrients and time it needs to
repair those muscles! People who choose to use steroids to get huge and build extreme amounts of
muscle aren't getting huge because the drugs allow them to lift more weight. What steroids do is speed
up the recovery process meaning they can repair their muscles faster which means growing them faster
and can be ready to work the same muscle again much sooner than someone who is natural. Steroids are
awful for your body, have horrible side effects and should be avoided at all costs. You can however
increase your recovery time naturally, through your sleep patterns, supplements, a quality nutrition plan
and foam rolling.
Foam rolling will help you in the gym by naturally increasing your rate of recovery. In every muscle
there is a fibrous membrane wrapped around the muscle fibers called muscle fascia. When you exercise
a muscle and cause those positive micro tears by working out, your muscle fascia starts to tighten up
and constrict your muscles and as a result traps in the toxins such as lactic acid waste and carbon
dioxide rich blood not allowing it to escape.
Along with the small positive micro tears causing the soreness of your muscles the tightening of the
muscle fascia causes you to feel the tightness and soreness as it’s squeezing your muscles restricting
blood flow and limiting the nutrients that are being pumped into your muscles. If you roll out your
muscles using a foam roller you are stretching out the muscle fascia which loosens the constriction on
your muscles and allows the toxins that are trapped to be released while also allowing a bigger flow of
fresh oxygen rich blood carrying the nutrients your repairing muscle fibers need to recover. All this
means is by foam rolling you naturally create a faster recovery rate which results in more muscle
growth.
You should foam roll every single time right before your workout and go over all your muscles, it’s a
short 10 minute cycle to roll the entire body and will do wonders for your recovery rate and soreness
levels.
Kurtis McLellan is a Hitch Fit Transformation Trainer at the Overland Park
location. Contact him for training at [email protected] or visit
www.HitchFitGym.com