For the first two or may be three years I was experimenting a lot with muscle mobilization techniques and exercises. I was looking constantly in the books something new to try, searching youtube and the internet for pictures that illustrate new things. Then investing the maximum time I could into muscle/fascia work.
How big was my time investment?
It was huge. I was spending 1 hour before work and 3-4 afterwards. On the free days/weekends I was working up to 8-12 hours a day.
Is it needed to invest that much time?
No.
For me it was more the desire to see progress and to get healthy as fast as possible. But working that much time at your muscles is counterproductive. Here is why:
- Muscles get tense – if you are not relaxed for all the time the work is pointless.
- Intensity is unsustainable long term – the motivation can suffer long term. But I didn’t understand that I was dealing with a long term process and have to take it in little steps.
- Too much pain – having severely dysfunctional fascias results in extreme pain when working on them. I have never used any medications for the pain during the whole time and all resulted in a bad mood as I honestly suffered.
- Muscles are not ready to release at once – it was a fact I had to learn slowly as I was not ready to believe it. I thought I can force the things and win the battle. No. The better I attuned to my body’s tempo of recovery, the better progress I got.
So what is my wisdom about time management with muscle work?
I generally will support the saying ‘more quality than quantity’ is better. So a quantity of up to 1 hour on work days and up to 2-3 hours at the weekend is reasonable for me. I have been working on my muscles almost every day for more than 4 years and think it is good to work may be just a few minutes a day but every day, here is why…
The quality work with muscles means two conditions are met:
- muscles and the whole body are relaxed
- fascias are ready to release some tension
The body relaxation is very important. I can only recommend to work on muscles after a nap or sleep… or a shower! In my early days I ignored that I’m getting nervous with time and tried to push through it, but it never brought satisfying results (may be as everything in life).
The second point is readiness of the fascias. This means that the standard mobilization techniques can easily release some stiffness, when applied at the places that are ready. The work on ready muscles is very satisfying as I actually could feel the results as the fascias were getting ‘unglued’.
As far as any of both conditions are not met it is time to call it a day and save your precious time for something better…
Twisted Pelvis 