5 tips to unleashing your inner athlete
Like you, we at at KT Tape want to run faster and jump higher. That's a given. We've studied a million exercises and absorbed as much information and experience as possible. We still wish we knew a few more tricks of the trade.
We were excited to find a recent article from Muscle and Fitness Magazine in which Joel Wuebben and Jim Ryno give five tips that help balance out fitness training while focusing on exercises that really get results. Wuebben and Ryno remind us that muscle recovery and flexibility are just as important as strength and power. Taking advantage of a simple tool in the gym such as a foam roller can help you make big gains in the gym.
"Aside from strength and power, two aspects of your training that need to be addressed are muscle recovery and flexibility. The former will allow you to experience continued gains in the gym instead of breaking down, and the latter will help improve overall athleticism and prevent injury. One way to enhance both is to use a foam roller as a means of giving yourself a massage - the technical term for this being SMR (self massage release). Massage, say, the hamstrings following a grueling leg workout is as simple as placing the roller on the floor (either in your gym's stretching area or at home) and moving it up and down the muscle firmly.
"The foam roller," says Ryno, "will help to improve blood flow [to the muscle being massaged] and increase flexibility."
Check out the rest of the article for a complete list of Wuebben and Ryno's sport-specific training tips.
