hey everybody it's Doctor Jo, and today I'm going to show you my top five
treatments for tight muscles. so let's get started.
so the first thing you want to do when you have
tight muscles is do a good warm-up first. if you go into stretches right away, you
usually don't get as much benefit if you warm up. then the muscles are nice and
loose and warm and they stretch a little bit better. so I usually like to use a
band just to do a warm-up. so if I was having my tight muscles maybe my quads
my hamstrings maybe even my glutes, I would just take a band and then just
kind of put it around my thighs here and then just lie down. and the reason I like
the band is because it kind of gives you some resistance in a bunch of different
direction, so I'm going to do a bridge but I'm gonna do a bridge with the band.
so I have some resistance going this way as well as when I come up .so I want to
still keep my knees about hip, shoulder width apart, and then I'm going to try
and keep that amount of tension on it as I come up into the bridge. so if I if my
knees start coming in, and they can't hold that tension, it might just be a
little bit too much of a resistance band. but just holding right there come up
into that bridge, get that nice kind of straight line at the top if you can. if
you can't that's okay and then just nice and slow
controlling it back down. so with this I would just start off with maybe you know
10. you can do one to two sets of ten and this is a great way to kind of get those
muscles loosened up. it's kind of a whole leg kind of thing. you can also stand up
and do some squats with the band as well. so kind of using that band to get that
extra kind of warm-up with it, but you're not doing a big heavy exercise yet.
you're just getting those muscles warm. so after you get up nice and warmed up,
then you can do a little bit of rolling out. if your muscles are really tight
sometimes stretches don't quite do the job, so you can use something like a
rolling stick to kind of get it worked out. so let's say my quad's really tight
here. I like using a stick because you have a little bit more control. you can
come over on the side. I get that IT band a little bit come up
onto the quads. you can get the lateral you can get the main one, you can get the
VMO on the inside and then even the adductor. so if I'm really tight in that
area this is a great way to kind of loosen it up. even if I wanted to go back
into the hamstrings on this side I could do that as well. so when you're using a
rolling stick, or something this one's nice because it is firm it doesn't give.
and so it gives you a lot of some pressure on there you can easily just
start off with maybe like one minute if you have really tight muscles this this
will work it out and you're going to feel it but eventually you can go up to
you know two three maybe even five minutes of just rolling out the whole
body. you can kind of even go into the calf as well and get it nice and
loosened up. so if if you don't have a rolling stick, or if you know you want
something maybe a little bit more pressure than the rolling stick, you can
use a roller. this one is really cool because you can see it's got some
acupressure points on it. so again maybe if I wanted to roll out my calves but
maybe the stick wasn't quite enough, then I can start using a little bit of
bodyweight pressure. so I'm just kind of I can turn it in and out get all sides
of that calf. these little acupressure points are giving that extra push in
there, and so I'm feeling a nice good stretch in there. and if that's not if
that's actually too much with the acupressure points, you can take this
piece off right here, and then just use the roller. now this isn't a foam roller
you can see here it's it's made out of a firm rubber material, so it's nice and
solid. so again this is going to give you that nice pressure for those tight
muscles to work them out. and so as you can see here, I've used a couple
different things so far and the folks at Skyin sent me their recovery kit. and
so this is really cool because if you have if you work out a lot, and you have
tight muscles sometimes it's nice to have a variety of things to use because
you know this might be great for a smaller muscle, this might be great for a
larger muscle group. you know if you're doing your arms or your shoulders you
can do it with just here, but that might not
but enough pressure. so you can get the roller now since this is not a foam
roller, since it's that hard rubber, you don't want to do something like rolling
out your spine because that's going to just be a little bit too much pressure.
so just make sure that you're aware of that and so then also you can just use
for the acupressure points here. so if you were sitting you could put your feet
on it. a lot of times when you have just general tight muscles even down into
your feet like a plantar fascia maybe, the plantar fasciitis or just
maybe some cramping and the arches. if you're sitting in a chair, you might get
more pressure you can also just if you've got some tightness in your low
low back. a lot of times those acupressure points have been shown to
really kind of help relax the muscles. so you can just kind of lie down on it for
some people this might be uncomfortable at first because you know they're
they're little points. so you feel the kind of tingling feeling but if you lie
here for long enough maybe a minute to two minutes it gets a kind of nice warm
feeling because it just helps increase the circulation. and a lot of times with
tight muscles, what's happening is you're not getting good circulation in there. so
that's just a really really good way to kind of try different things and get
that that blood flowing that circulation increase to get those tight muscles out
of there. and the strap is really cool I wanted to go back to that really quickly
because you can see here that you can change the loop size, and that also gives
you a little bit of different tension. so it has a couple different spots here
where you can change it which is really nice as well. and then it also has a
little two little silicone strips on the inside so then it doesn't slip as much.
so this is a really cool type of band as well and it's also cloth instead of
latex so it's gonna last you a lot longer than other types of resistive
bands. so if you're interested in purchasing the recovery kit make sure
and click on the link up there .so the last one that I really like is kind of
doing just a whole body stretch. especially if you're tight sometimes you
might just be maybe tight in your calves because you're running a lot, but a lot
of times if you're doing a whole body workout you're you're tight kind of all
over. and probably my favorite whole body stretch is a prayer stretch. and so with
a prayer, if you're comfortable getting down on
your knees that's great on the floor any of these you it's better to do on a firm
surface, but you can do them on your couch or on the bed. but if your knees
aren't too painful just to come down like this. you're gonna go into a prayer
stretch where then you're just stretching your arms out and then coming
all the way down. so you can see here I'm stretching out my shoulders. if I have
some tight shoulders I'm stretching out my hips, my knees, and even my feet. you
can see they're pointed out so it's really a nice whole body stretch. and so
this one you'd really want to lie here for about thirty seconds and then come
back up and do three times. so you can you can start here and roll out or if
that doesn't quite work for you maybe if your knees are a little tight, you can
actually start with your hands out in front of you, and then lean back. so if I
couldn't go all the way down I'm still getting a really nice shoulder stretch.
I'm still stretching out my hips and my knees and my feet as well. so I really
like to finish off with that whole body stretch which is really nice. so those
were my top five treatments for muscle tightness. if you're interested in
purchasing the recovery kit, make sure and click on the link up there. and don't
forget to subscribe by clicking down there. and remember be safe, have fun ,and
I hope you feel better soon.