Injury Prevention with Foam Rollers

You have the tools, the techniques, the treatments, the injury management, and the mindset to keep your muscles and joints moving as you intend them to move. Now it’s time to apply the magic of the foam rollers to prevent injuries.

It only seems logical. If you know rollers are great at unlocking muscles, mobilizing fascia, warming up soft tissue, increasing joint range of motion, and improving how your body moves, why wouldn’t you apply that sports medicine wisdom to prevent injuries?

What is injury prevention?

Many of us have that one sport or activity that we love to do. Everything about the sport seems to blend with us as a person. We’re comfortable with it. It mixes well with our schedule and our friends. In a crazy kind of way, our sports “gets” us.

We consistently use our one primary sport for many reasons:

• Stress management
• Weight reduction
• Strength training
• Socializing
• Social media posts
• Time away from work, kids, in-laws, finances, homework, home projects, to-do lists, and so on
• Adventure
• Creative thinking

All those reasons are perfect motivators to get out and move. But there’s one problem: Using one sport or activity so often, for so long, and for so many reasons has a very strong tendency to alter the muscle balance in your body. Stronger muscles get stronger and tighter, while the weaker muscles get weaker and longer.

It’s the perfect formula for an overuse injury.

In addition, when a muscle imbalance gets worse over time, a person’s posture demonstrates those imbalances. Have you noticed how you can tell a person’s sport by the way they stand and walk? They just seem to have the “look” of a runner or basketball player or CrossFitter. What you’re seeing is a muscle imbalance in their posture.

Injury prevention is the act of reducing the risk and/or severity of bodily harm.

If we wanted to prevent all injuries for a person, we’d bubble-wrap them, lock them in a padded room, and implement 100 percent abstinence. That’d certainly be injury prevention overkill.

Instead, I focus on smart injury prevention both above the neck and below it. In other words, I educate the person on the science of preventing injuries and help them perform specific exercises and stretches, based on their sport or activity, to keep their muscles balanced.

Keeping muscles on both sides of the joints and on both sides of the body balanced keeps the body functioning well. A muscle imbalance, like a misaligned car tire, makes everything around it suffer. Other joints are forced to move differently. Muscles above and below alter their roles to compensate. Even the spine is impacted with the changes taking place around its 26 bones.

3 steps to prevent injuries

Preventing injuries can encompass many factors involving your muscles, nutrition, footwear, weather, past medical history, mindset, warm-up, cool-down, equipment and so on. By now you know I like, no, I love to keep my sports medicine tips simple and positively impactful.

Keeping with my “simpler is better” approach, I’ve boiled my injury prevention down to three easy steps. Step 1 will help you identify overworked muscles needing treatment with your new self-myofascial unlocking skills, Step 2 shares sports medicine insight on which muscles need to be strengthened and, Step 3 recommends smart activities to prevent future injuries.

1. Unlock the motor muscles

With every sport, there are groups of muscles that do a large amount of the work. These prime movers are often referred to as the agonist muscles. That name sounds too stuffy for me. Instead, I call those blue-collar, hard-working muscles your motor muscles. They’re your body’s powerhouses to get the work done so that you can enjoy your favorite sports and activities. Whichever muscle or muscle group comprises the motor muscles depends on the sport.

2. Strengthen opposing muscles

When the motor muscles are hard at work, opposing, or antagonistic, muscles are constantly being stretched and lengthened. These opposing muscles are located on the opposite side (front or back) of your body or limb. If the motor muscle is on the front side of an extremity, the opposing muscles are found on the back side of the limb. If the motor muscle is on the front side of the body, the opposing muscles are found on the back side of the body.

Opposing muscles are not recruited during specific sports to do most of the work, as the motor muscles are. Meanwhile, opposing muscles are consistently lengthened, thanks to the pull from motor muscles, so they tend to become overly long and weaken.

3. Launch prevention exercises for your sport

To avoid your body returning to an imbalanced and injury-prone state after a roller treatment, practice simple, preventative exercises designed to maintain your restored muscle balance.

Let’s review the three-step plan: In Step 1, re-establish proper length of your motor muscles. In Step 2, identify opposing muscles which are too-long and too-weak and make them stronger. Here in Step 3, you’re wisely launching a movement piggybacking on Steps 1 and 2 to prevent future injuries to keep yourself in the game. In other words, to keep you in your “happy place.”

Applying the 3 steps to preventing injuries in your sport

Here’s where you apply the Three Steps to Preventing Injuries to your sport. Each sport has varying demands on your body. Each of the three steps is customized for your sport. Based on your sport below, you’ll be instructed which muscle you need to unlock, which muscles need to be strengthened, and what movements/activities you should do to prevent injuries down the road.

As always, listen to your muscles and joints. They will tell you what part of your daily routine you need to tweak or adjust. Your muscles and joints will thank you.

Running

Here’s how to apply the three steps to prevent running-related injuries:

1. Unlock the motor muscles.

• Hamstrings
• Hip flexors
• Chest—the pecs

2. Strengthen opposing muscles.

• Reverse lunges
• Bird dogs
• Prone reverse flies

3. Perform prevention exercises.

• Quad unlocking—See "How to Unlock the Quads with Foam Rolling."
• Lat and groin reach-out stretches
• Pool running

Cycling or spinning

Here’s how to apply the three steps to prevent cycling- or spinning-related injuries:

1. Unlock the motor muscles.

• Hip flexors
• Quads
• Chest — the pecs

2. Strengthen opposing muscles.

• Bird dogs—See "Upper-Body Foam Roller Workouts and Stretches."
• Bridges
• Prone reverse flies

3. Perform prevention exercises.

• Hip flexor unlocking
• Aqua therapy/Swimming – Exercise in water is a great injury-preventing activity for athletes and non-athletes alike. Be it swimming, running in the deep end with a floatation device on, walking in the shallow end, or just moving your arms and legs against the resistance of the water, it’s time well spent.
• Lying face-up on a Swiss ball – Lying belly-up on a large (3 to 5 feet in diameter) Swiss ball is a heavenly position for a cyclist or anyone following prolonged sitting. If you think about it, laying face-up on a Swiss ball (lower spine extension) is the exact opposite position of a bicyclist (lower spine flexion). Lying belly-up on the Swiss ball lengthens your hip flexors, stretch your quads, and relax your abdominal muscles.

Gym weight training

Here’s how to apply the three steps to prevent gym weight training–related injuries:

1. Unlock the motor muscles.

• Chest — the pecs
• Biceps
• Lats

2. Strengthen opposing muscles.

• Rowing with bands
• Prone reverse flies
• Standing delt raises

3. Perform prevention exercises.

• Lat or groin reach-out stretches
• Resistive shoulder external rotation – Learn to master these exercises because they’re key strength exercises for everyone who’s active. With resistance originating from the opposite side of the body via a rubber exercise band, cable machine, or good old-fashioned manual resistance, forcefully externally rotate your lower arm outward with your elbow flexed to 90 degrees and inside of elbow held snuggly against your ribs directly below your armpit. Keep the motion slow in both directions and the resistance high enough for 8 to 12 reps per set for 3 to 5 sets.
• Yoga/flexibility classes – Commit yourself to improving your posture with a flexibility expert. As a cyclist, your hip flexors and quads become strong, short and tight. Yoga classes or flexibility classes will help you “reverse ship” to make your hip flexors and quads strong, long and loose.

Swimming

Here’s how to apply the three steps to prevent swimming-related injuries:

1. Unlock the motor muscles.

• Chest — the pecs
• Lats
• Lower back extensors

2. Strengthen opposing muscles.

• Rowing with bands
• Prone reverse flies
• Crunches

3. Perform prevention exercises.

• Lat or groin reach-out stretches
• Chest or pecs stretches
• Swimming the backstroke—Swimming the backstroke is a smart way to reverse your shoulder muscle firing patterns. The backstroke naturally adds balance to the muscles and fascia on the front/back of the chest/upper back as well as with your all-important rotator cuff.

Basketball

Here’s how to apply the three steps to prevent basketball-related injuries:

1. Unlock the motor muscles.

• Quads
• Calves
• Groin

2. Strengthen opposing muscles.

• Bridges
• Wall sits, with toes off the ground
• Side planks

3. Perform prevention exercises.

• Lat or groin reach-out stretches
• Pool running or swimming
• Bike riding—Bike riding is good for both your body and mind. It’s easy on your joints with a reduction in compression, it can get you outside with the wind in your face, and it has a magical skill to make you feel half your age! Who can resist smiling and feeling less stressed when riding an outdoor bike? Not me and, hopefully, not you.

Golf

Here’s how to apply the three steps to prevent golf-related injuries:

1. Unlock the motor muscles.

• Chest — the pecs
• Abs
• Hip flexors

2. Strengthen opposing muscles.

• Prone reverse flies
• Bird dogs
• Bridges

3. Perform prevention exercises.

• Chin tucks (see figure)
• Lat or groin reach-out stretches
• Lying face-up on a Swiss ball

Soccer

Here’s how to apply the three steps to prevent soccer-related injuries:

1. Unlock the motor muscles.

• Quads
• Groin
• Calves

2. Strengthen opposing muscles.

• Bridges
• Side planks
• Wall sits, with toes off the ground

3. Perform prevention exercises.

• Hip flexor stretches
• Calf stretches
• Bird dogs

Tennis

Here’s how to apply the three steps to prevent tennis-related injuries:

1. Unlock the motor muscles.

• Lats
• Groin
• Quads

2. Strengthen opposing muscles.

• Prone reverse flies
• Side planks
• Bridges

3. Perform prevention exercises.

• Iliotibial band (ITB) stretches—See "Lower Body Foam Roller Workouts and Stretches."
• Lat or groin reach-out stretches
• Lying face-up on a Swiss ball

Gym cardio

Here’s how to apply the three steps to prevent gym cardio-related injuries:

1. Unlock the motor muscles.

• Quads
• Hip flexors
• Calves

2. Strengthen opposing muscles.

• Bird dogs
• Bridges
• Wall sits, with toes off the ground

3. Perform prevention exercises.

• Front planks
• Hip flexor stretches
• Groin stretches