In this video, we're going to look at both when and how it would be useful to foam roll your quads
if you've got knee pain, we’ll look at when it won't really have much of an effect on that,
and then we're going to look at foam rolling your quads because actually you've got quad pain,
and we'll look at when you should really not be foam rolling them,
but also in what cases it may be useful. And then … You know how, if you've tried foam rolling
your quad in the past, you've likely found that it can be really painful to do; I'll explain
why that is. And then, of course, lastly, we'll look at how you can foam roll it for best effect.
For those of you who don't know me, my name is Maryke. I'm one of the physiotherapists from
sports-injury-physio.com, where you can get online physiotherapy assessment as well as treatment for
your injuries. Have a look at the description of this video if you want a link to our website.
Okay, so, why does foam rolling the quads sometimes helps for knee pain and other
times has absolutely no effect? Well, the key to that, or the answer to that lies in
why does your knee hurt in the first place? If your knee is hurting because you've injured
something inside the joint, like the cartilage or one of the ligaments that's quite close to
the knee joint – any of those structures – then foam rolling the quads wouldn’t really make a
difference. You quads may feel tight because the body is trying to protect your joint. And yeah,
you can reduce that tightness for a short period of time, but it will just come back.
So, if the injury is inside the knee … won't really be useful.
However, sometimes really tight and sensitive quads can have trigger points in them, and they
can be referring pain into your knee. So, if your knee pain is actually pain being referred from
the quads muscle, then releasing the quads can have a significant effect on the pain you feel.
And sometimes, if the quads are overly tight, it can pull the kneecap ever so slightly out of
alignment and make it uncomfortable when you move. If that's the case and you release the quads,
your knee will also feel more comfortable. So, those are the main reasons why sometimes it helps
and other times it doesn't. The important thing that is that you have to remember that it's really
useful to figure out, why did this happen in the first place? So, ‘Why is my knee so tight or sore
that it's actually causing me to have knee pain?’ Because if you don't figure that out, it may
just continue to be like that, because you will continue doing the activities that aggravate it.
Let's look at when you want to foam roll your quads because you've actually got quad pain. Now,
please do not foam roll your quad if you've got a fresh injury to it. So, if you've pulled your
muscle or you've strained you quad muscle, please do not foam roll it within the first few days
or even the first week or so. Because what happens in the muscle when you pull it
is that you actually tear some of the fibres, some of the muscle cells. And that area is really
sensitive and fragile and not strong yet. So, if you go and roll on it because now it's feeling
tight because of all the swelling inside of the injured muscle, you will make that injury worse.
And at best, you will just irritate it, but if you've got a lot of bleeding in there,
you can actually worsen it as well. So, stay away from it; if you've just pulled your muscle today;
it's not the time to foam roll it. Now, when can it be useful to foam roll a quad muscle? Well,
the first instance is … You know how, when you do a lot of sports, your muscles naturally feel a bit
tighter or stiffer afterwards, and especially the next day? So, foam rolling has been shown to help
relax the muscles and to help lengthen it, but just for a short period of time. So,
it can be useful to get rid of that tight feeling that you get after exercise.
Second, it can also help to reduce the amount of muscle soreness you feel after exercise.
Now, I'm not talking about injured muscles here. I'm just talking ... You know the DOMS
– delayed onset of muscle soreness – that you get if you do an exercise session that's
quite hard and the next day you wake up and go, ‘Whoa! I can feel I've worked!’
So there is research to support that, if you do foam rolling after a session like that,
you can reduce the tightness and stiffness or the pain you feel the next day. So,
foam rolling quads - really useful if the quads are just tight and stiff because of exercise.
Not that useful and should probably be avoided if you've actually injured your quad muscle.
Why, if your quad muscle isn't injured, is it so painful to foam roll it? Now, I bet you've figured
out that it's not the whole quad muscle that's usually that painful; it tends to be more the
outer part – the lateral quads – or where you get closer to the knee. And the answer for that is,
because there's just not that much padding. So, when we get to the side of the thigh, the muscle
belly eventually stops and you don't have as much fat in that area and you've got your sinewy
IT band running there. So, there's not much padding between the nerve endings and the fascia
and the bone. And fascia has lots of nerve endings in it. So basically, you're squashing the nerve
endings against the bone, and that's why it's more painful. Same thing for close to the knee. Again,
there's not a lot of fat there, not a lot of padding, and that's why it's so sensitive. Then,
how can you best foam roll your quads for best effect? So, there is no gold standard, but what
they use ... So, they've not established through research what is the very best way to do it.
But what they tend to use is, they tend to use either broad strokes, where you run along the
muscle, or they use point pressure. Now, when they do the broad strokes, it's kind of like
somebody giving you a massage in that direction. They spend about two minutes per muscle group,
so, you'll spend about two minutes per quad – per thigh muscle. And for the point pressure,
they apply pressure, with a massage ball, usually, to specific painful spots. And they use about 30
seconds … they sustain it up to 60 seconds that they keep on that spot. And it's important also
that you understand that you're looking for ‘comfortably uncomfortable’ pressure. You're not
looking to bruise that muscle. Bruising something means you're injuring it; it's not useful. It can
be satisfying if it's been annoying you, but it's really not useful. So, it's got to be comfortably
uncomfortable. Now, I'll show you a demo video about how I tend to foam roll my muscles. Okay, so
we're going to foam roll the quads. I usually find it's quite an upper body workout to do the quads.
And again, I use my opposite leg to support myself, to take some weight off my upper body.
Let's see what's the best way to show you this. I think I'll do this leg. So, I tend to just lean
onto it first and get a feel for it. And then, we want to go ... Remember, there's four parts
to your quad. The first two muscles lie on top of each other, right in the middle,
you've got your vastus lateralis on the side, and then medialis. The outside is always more
uncomfortable and more tender. So, don't go killing yourself on that. Be gentle;
‘comfortably uncomfortable’ is what you're looking for. So, I tend to start in the middle and just
get a feel for it. And you'll notice that at this point, I'm not even putting much weight through my
arms yet, because I'm being very gentle, because mine's quite tender. And then we just go down
along the length of it ... There we go. Ooh! Why is mine so tender today? And then you want to
angle your body that you're more onto your side, and I'm not trying to hammer my IT band here;
I'm actually just on the lateral quad. But your IT band tends to run over that. So, you want to
release that, but be gentle, because it is always sensitive when you're on the IT band. There we go!
And then, you can angle it a little bit so that you get more the inside of the muscle as well.
But I find this is a little bit like turning yourself into a pretzel.
So, let me just get my position here. There we go! It tends to be a little bit awkward.
I prefer ... and I haven't got one of them at the moment ... If you've got those roller sticks
… even a rolling pin would work ... it works much better for the inside of the thigh,
because you can just sit and do that. Roller works really well for middle as well as outside,
but using the opposite legs. So, let me just show you from this side what I was doing with my other
leg. So, if I'm rolling this one, I just had my other leg in that position. So, it can help me …
help guide me through the motion and then when you return this way, it can still help guide me.
Now, you could use a ball as well for point pressure. I've got a foam roller with knobbly
bits on it. So, for my quads, I tend to use this if I've got a spot that I really want to just put
pressure on. You want to hold for about 30, 60 seconds to get it to release. I think my
thigh is a little bit 'too fleshy', we're going to call it, because if I try to use a tennis ball or
something to massage spots, it just disappears into it. But if you don't ... if you're on the
skinnier side of things, you may actually find that a tennis ball works well for that as well.
Excellent! Hope you found that useful. Let me know if you've got any questions. And remember,
if you need more help with an injury, you're welcome to consult one of us via video call.
The link to the website is in the description of this video. Take care!