The Role that “Soft Tissue Work” Plays in Success, when you look at the cyclical nature of training whether it is for sport or personal fitness, you have to include the need for proper nutrition, rest, and restoration. For the vast majority of people that train even at the highest levels of the sport, they often don’t complete the circle of key components along the way to maximize their training success. Some if not most active people will focus all their energy on the actual training and to a lesser but not forgot part nutrition. However, without the necessary focus on rest and restoration, the other two aspects are often sacrificed or at least inhibited to the point that the training is merely a test of one's ability to swim against the stream.I understand that there can be some confusion in the differentiation of rest and restoration as they seem to explain the same thing. However, we are looking at rest regarding generalization. Sleeping is rest or restful, but you may not be achieving full restoration as a product of your nightly slumber. I could also take a moment and lay quietly on the couch, and this too may allow for some rest yet it may still not recover you from your activity. When we talk about restoration for the sake of this topic we are talking about the replenishing and recovery of the taxed body systems during the demands of your training. If you trained to the point of complete macronutrient depletion, then you must make sure to recover the systems through diet and nutrition. If you have been competing at a high level of not only excitement but adrenaline, then you must return your nervous system from a sympathetic to a parasympathetic state. If you have caused yourself a lot of physical trauma from repeated strain or physical stress, you will have to unwind and release the tonus from the soft tissue of the body.For the sake what we are looking at today regarding restoration we want to stop and focus on the idea of returning the nervous system and muscular system to a restored existence following the trauma caused by your workouts.
Bodies are organisms of balance living between worlds of stop and go, requiring the proper balance of both to reach maximal potential. If you continue to live a high-stress life involving work and family, followed by a workout even though good for you mentally. It’s taxing physically and the body beings to run its stores even lower. The sympathetic nervous system dominates for the majority of the day, the very same system that dumps adrenaline into the veins to fight the tiger or hunt a bear. However, if there is no chance for this system to recover restoration and inevitably rest cannot take place. When the body stays sympathetic for too long of a period the system becomes disrupted not allowing for the proper rationing of nutrients and hormones creating a negative cascade effect to all other systems of the body.However, there is hope with the addition of soft tissue work ranging from traditional massage to neuromuscular therapy. A Board licensed therapist will be able to slow the cascading effect of stress and the adverse impact that it has on not only your training gains but also your lifeby implemenrting the previous techniques. The regular incorporation of massage will lower the sympathetic state or fight and flight response you may be having to the world (even if you are not acutely aware of this) to a parasympathetic state or a rest and digest state of existence. By bring order to the body and balance to the system the body can start to focus on its ability to prepare for the next stressor that it will have to deal with, and it will be able to deal with it efficiently.