March 5, 2025 • 11 mins
In today’s episode, we navigate the often blurry lines between warm-ups and tissue mobilization, specifically focusing on common practices like foam rolling and the use of massage guns. Many athletes and active individuals mistakenly believe that using these tools adequately prepares their bodies for intense physical activities. Throughout our discussion, we emphasize that while these modalities can be beneficial for loosening tight muscles, they should not substitute for a comprehensive warm-up routine.
We delve deep into the intricacies of effective performance preparation, showcasing how dynamic warm-ups contribute to increased blood flow and muscle readiness. We explore the role of neural engagement and motor unit recruitment that enhance strength and stability, ensuring your body can tolerate the demands of intense workouts. The conversation also highlights the potential risks of jumping directly into activities without proper preparation, specifically targeting casual athletes in recreational leagues.
Listen in to gain insights on how to optimize your warm-up routines, including practical tips for gradually building strength and avoiding injury. Elevate your workout game—understand how to use foam rollers, lacrosse balls, and more in conjunction with effective warm-ups to achieve a balanced and successful fitness regimen. Join us as we unpack these essential topics, equip you with actionable insights, and help foster a mindful approach to athletic preparation. Be sure to subscribe, share your feedback, and let’s keep the conversation going!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
If you're a driven, active person who wants to reach
and pursue a higher qualitylife with some ambition, then
guess what this podcast is foryou.
This is the Driven AthletePodcast.
A question I get a lot andoften is should I foam roll or
I'm tight?
How should I warm up?
Should I roll it out?
(00:22):
Should I push on it with alacrosse ball?
Should I use a Theragun like aHypervolt compression gun?
What are those things for right?
I don't hate foam rolling.
I don't hate using a lacrosseball or something like that on
like a tight, lit up tissuethat's bound down and knotted up
and stuff.
I don't hate that stuff.
(00:43):
I don't hate the Theragun orlike the Hypervolt compression
gun to work out lit up tissue.
The underlying goal is thosemodalities is to just mobilize
the tissue.
It's not a warmup.
Foam rolling is not a warmup.
Rolling out on the cross ballon like the back of your
(01:03):
shoulder, your trap, your glutearea, your calf, like whatever,
that's not a warmup.
Rolling out on the cross ballon like the back of your
shoulder, your trap, your glutearea, your calf, like whatever,
that's not a warmup.
Using the Thera gun and a hyperor hypervolt like my shot
massage gun, is not a warmup,but they can be valuable tools
to help mobile.
What I usually say is they'revaluable tools to help mobilize
lit up tissue that's not movingwell right.
(01:26):
Trigger points, myofascialtrigger point, release muscles
that are knotted up and downdown and they can help with what
they describe as generatinghyaluronic acid, which is the
fluid between the interstitialtissue that helps with fiber
gliding and pliability betweenthe tissues for gliding
rightiding and pliabilitybetween the tissues for gliding
right.
It's like lubrication betweenyour tissues, whereas the
(01:48):
lubrication for your joints.
That fluid is called synovialfluid and we definitely have to
get synovial fluid and bloodflow to your muscle tissue and
your joints, and the best way todo that is like an actual
dynamic warmup.
All right, so foam rollers,lacrosse ball, thereragun,
massage guns, whatever.
That's not a warmup, but it'sjust used to mobilize tissue,
which I'm a fan of for sure.
(02:09):
Right, if there's like a, aknot, like in your lateral hip
or like side of your hip, orlike at the back of your
shoulder, your trap or whateveryou know, we can roll that out
and work it out.
It helps to mobilize the tissue.
What I don't advocate for iscrushing the tissue that's my
problem when, like in collegeand like my own workouts and
(02:29):
stuff like that, like it hurtskind of good, it hurts so good,
right.
So harder must be better andI'm going to crush the tissue
with rolling on it or crushingit with like a lacrosse ball
against the wall or the floor.
It's not really the goal.
It actually might lead thingsgetting more lit up and more
irritated or sensitive.
Just mobilize right, you canmobilize the tissue and avenues,
(02:52):
for that is like to compressthe tissue against a hard
surface like the wall or thefloor, and just in small ways
and not fast, but just roll overthat tissue over and over again
.
That just helps to mobilize thetissue and loosen up some
myofascial trigger points andknotted tissue.
And it shouldn't cause referredpain, because that means we're
(03:16):
crushing a nerve, which is aproblem and like a mistake,
where if we're rolling thetissue out and it hurts badly
but it kind of hurts good andwe're pushing too hard and it's
causing symptoms in the area toextend like referred pain, but
we crush it Sometimes we'recrushing a nerve and just
(03:39):
irritating nerve tissue more andthat's going to make things
worse, right, so there's adifference between rolling out
soft tissue and like muscletissue and then also
accidentally, unknowinglycrushing a nerve underneath,
that, that is going to makethings worse and more sensitive
and more lit up, and usuallyless is more is something I
usually suggest to people, justin case we're crushing a nerve
(04:03):
they don't know otherwise, butalso just to not light up the
tissue and make it supersensitive after that too, and we
don't want to overreat as inlike doing like a thousand reps
of like crushing the tissue witha foam roller or lacrosse ball
or something like that.
But anyway, it helps to loosenup tissue, stimulate a little
bit of hyaluronic acid, and ithelps to roll out and mobilize
(04:25):
myofascial trigger points andknots, just to mobilize the
tissue.
But it's not a warmup andthat's a key difference right
there.
The warmup other topics we'vetalked about would include a
range of things like generalblood flow.
First, a bike, an assault bike,elliptical, a rower going for a
(04:45):
walk, a walk, jog, just to getthe blood flowing and get the
blood going, all right.
The next thing would be likedynamic stretches right or
stretching routine.
I don't hate static stretching.
I'm not an advocate for likeanything longer than like 20
seconds.
I don't think it's that big.
The research is conflictedbehind that.
We're not going to lengthen,make muscles longer, we're just.
(05:08):
The goal is just to take themuscles and the tissues that
surround it to their elastic endrange better, multiple times,
so that they get more pliableand ready to tolerate athletic
intense activity and exercise,versus not doing that and then
immediately sprinting or goinginto a squats and whatever.
There's not enough blood flowin the tissue for it to be ready
(05:31):
to tolerate and create enoughpower output and it's not
pliable enough at this point andthe elastic end range hasn't
been reached and so the tissuesaren't ready to tolerate that
kind of intense activity.
And then after that, foam roll,lacrosse ball workout, tight
tissues that maybe are knottedup or whatever right.
(05:52):
That in total would bepreparing someone's body for
athletic activity.
In total we would call thatlike a warmup, or I like to call
it movement prep.
We're preparing ourselves totolerate.
We're imagine if a sprinter wereto wake up in the morning, gets
his shoes on, gets on the track, doesn't do anything else and
(06:12):
just immediately sprints.
It's a high risk for, likestraining, some muscles right
and the joints aren't ready totolerate that kind of impact too
.
We have to get them ready totolerate the impact.
Another component of that toolike but anyway, in general it's
just to prepare your body totolerate high intensity athletic
(06:33):
physical activity and exerciseand part of that is just
bringing the muscles to theirelastic end range so that when
you take them to stressful endranges with a lot of pressure
and load and tension they're notgoing to freak out on you and
they're not going to strainright, because there's not
enough blood flow and synovialfluid and hyaluronic acid in
(06:55):
there to tolerate andaccommodate that kind of
stressful activity.
That kind of stressful activityAlso, with that too, it's like
part of it is getting the nerves, the neural engagement and
activity to innervate and wakeup and recruit motor units.
All right.
So it's, it's a neuralactivation that also creates
(07:15):
more stability and movementcontrol, but also motor unit
control for power output wheresomething's going to take the
stress too much and that causesthat's what causes issues and
strains and stuff.
If someone's like not warmed upenough, you know, I'm saying
it's like the beer leagues ofsoftball of adults, adult beer
league softball or kickballpeople showing up and I just
like you know, drinking somebeers and then, uh, sprint to
(07:36):
first base and they tear theirachilles or they just strain
their hamstring or somethinglike that.
I've actually seen that a bunchof times.
Live, they're just not readyyet.
Like a little bit too stressfulfor maybe that they've been
doing recently, but also theydidn't warm up.
So a combination of those twothings leads to like severe
injury, and that can be avoided,right.
Or just a little mindfulnesstoo, and then ego lifting or ego
(07:57):
movements Just like I cansprint, I can race you, whatever
You're not ready.
That's a key thing.
So I'm an advocate for foamrolling, lacrosse ball and soft
tissue modalities just to loosenthings up mile faster.
Trigger points the other thing Iwas going to say was part of
(08:19):
like the movement prep andwarmup.
If somebody's lifting weightsright, their strength training
heavy, their first working set,let's say of squats or bench
press or something like thatthey have to build up to that
weight tolerance first, right.
So let's say a person is verystrong and they can squat 500
(08:41):
pounds, let's say like SaquonBarkley or something like that
right, they can back squat like500.
And today we're going to workout, we're going to do five sets
of eight reps, which is a bigworkout.
It's like a good amount of repsfor squat at a high load and we
know that they can max out at500 pounds.
Well, their working sets aren'treally going to start until
(09:05):
they get to like 425, let's sayright, or 405.
But rep one and set one they'renot going to do 405.
They're going to do the warmupI just talked about bike,
elliptical, rower, whatevergeneral warmup to get the blood
flow.
They're going to do mobilitystretching, routine, joint
mobilization stuff, dynamicstretching, some static
stretching I don't hate that andthen activation exercises, part
(09:27):
of their movement prep.
They're going to roll out softtissues, that's, tight hamstring
, quad glute back of theirshoulders, like whatever.
Now they're ready to squat,right, but they haven't like,
squatted yet heavy.
Do you think they're ready todo 405 right now?
Heavy, do you think they'reready to do 405 right now?
No, they have to build up tothat first where they would do
135.
(09:47):
And then they would do 185.
And then they would do 250.
And then they would do 315 fora couple reps, like we're doing,
like three to five reps just tobuild and warm up.
They're also getting the nervesthat innervate the muscles to
wake up and early innervate.
So they're innervating andrecruiting motor units for
strength and stability.
They'd be more efficient andstrong for power output.
(10:09):
If they're not doing that it'sjust going to cause issues.
So they build up, pyramid,building up to the set that they
want to do.
But that's just also part ofthe warmup.
135, 225, 275, 315, 375.
That was four sets.
Right, maybe five, but that'snot the working set because your
(10:31):
max is way higher than that.
You have to build up to thatfirst.
Now you're ready for your firstset.
Your first working set would belike 405.
So that's also part of thewarmup.
So for athletes and activepeople that are intensely
working out, consider that foryourselves too.
For weekend warriors and peoplethat are trying to dabble in
fitness, it wouldn't beadvisable to show up and just
(10:55):
start doing the workout rightaway without building into it
first.
And part of that is the neuralphysiology, the neural
recruitment and neuralactivation for the motor unit
recruitment and proprioceptionand power output and strength.
So just keep that in mind too.
But anyway, those are myinsights.
On foam rollers, lacrosse ballsand massage guns, I don't hate
(11:17):
them at all, but they'reancillary to an actual dynamic
warmup, just to mobilize tissueand not crush tissue.
So don't hesitate to reach outif you have any questions.
We're always here to help out.
If you're a driven, active person who wants to reach
and pursue a higher qualitylife with some ambition, then
guess what this podcast is foryou.
This is the Driven AthletePodcast.
A question I get a lot andoften is should I foam roll or
I'm tight?
How should I warm up?
Should I roll it out?
(00:22):
Should I push on it with alacrosse ball?
Should I use a Theragun like aHypervolt compression gun?
What are those things for right?
I don't hate foam rolling.
I don't hate using a lacrosseball or something like that on
like a tight, lit up tissuethat's bound down and knotted up
and stuff.
I don't hate that stuff.
(00:43):
I don't hate the Theragun orlike the Hypervolt compression
gun to work out lit up tissue.
The underlying goal is thosemodalities is to just mobilize
the tissue.
It's not a warmup.
Foam rolling is not a warmup.
Rolling out on the cross ballon like the back of your
(01:03):
shoulder, your trap, your glutearea, your calf, like whatever,
that's not a warmup.
Rolling out on the cross ballon like the back of your
shoulder, your trap, your glutearea, your calf, like whatever,
that's not a warmup.
Using the Thera gun and a hyperor hypervolt like my shot
massage gun, is not a warmup,but they can be valuable tools
to help mobile.
What I usually say is they'revaluable tools to help mobilize
lit up tissue that's not movingwell right.
(01:26):
Trigger points, myofascialtrigger point, release muscles
that are knotted up and downdown and they can help with what
they describe as generatinghyaluronic acid, which is the
fluid between the interstitialtissue that helps with fiber
gliding and pliability betweenthe tissues for gliding
rightiding and pliabilitybetween the tissues for gliding
right.
It's like lubrication betweenyour tissues, whereas the
(01:48):
lubrication for your joints.
That fluid is called synovialfluid and we definitely have to
get synovial fluid and bloodflow to your muscle tissue and
your joints, and the best way todo that is like an actual
dynamic warmup.
All right, so foam rollers,lacrosse ball, thereragun,
massage guns, whatever.
That's not a warmup, but it'sjust used to mobilize tissue,
which I'm a fan of for sure.
(02:09):
Right, if there's like a, aknot, like in your lateral hip
or like side of your hip, orlike at the back of your
shoulder, your trap or whateveryou know, we can roll that out
and work it out.
It helps to mobilize the tissue.
What I don't advocate for iscrushing the tissue that's my
problem when, like in collegeand like my own workouts and
(02:29):
stuff like that, like it hurtskind of good, it hurts so good,
right.
So harder must be better andI'm going to crush the tissue
with rolling on it or crushingit with like a lacrosse ball
against the wall or the floor.
It's not really the goal.
It actually might lead thingsgetting more lit up and more
irritated or sensitive.
Just mobilize right, you canmobilize the tissue and avenues,
(02:52):
for that is like to compressthe tissue against a hard
surface like the wall or thefloor, and just in small ways
and not fast, but just roll overthat tissue over and over again
.
That just helps to mobilize thetissue and loosen up some
myofascial trigger points andknotted tissue.
And it shouldn't cause referredpain, because that means we're
(03:16):
crushing a nerve, which is aproblem and like a mistake,
where if we're rolling thetissue out and it hurts badly
but it kind of hurts good andwe're pushing too hard and it's
causing symptoms in the area toextend like referred pain, but
we crush it Sometimes we'recrushing a nerve and just
(03:39):
irritating nerve tissue more andthat's going to make things
worse, right, so there's adifference between rolling out
soft tissue and like muscletissue and then also
accidentally, unknowinglycrushing a nerve underneath,
that, that is going to makethings worse and more sensitive
and more lit up, and usuallyless is more is something I
usually suggest to people, justin case we're crushing a nerve
(04:03):
they don't know otherwise, butalso just to not light up the
tissue and make it supersensitive after that too, and we
don't want to overreat as inlike doing like a thousand reps
of like crushing the tissue witha foam roller or lacrosse ball
or something like that.
But anyway, it helps to loosenup tissue, stimulate a little
bit of hyaluronic acid, and ithelps to roll out and mobilize
(04:25):
myofascial trigger points andknots, just to mobilize the
tissue.
But it's not a warmup andthat's a key difference right
there.
The warmup other topics we'vetalked about would include a
range of things like generalblood flow.
First, a bike, an assault bike,elliptical, a rower going for a
(04:45):
walk, a walk, jog, just to getthe blood flowing and get the
blood going, all right.
The next thing would be likedynamic stretches right or
stretching routine.
I don't hate static stretching.
I'm not an advocate for likeanything longer than like 20
seconds.
I don't think it's that big.
The research is conflictedbehind that.
We're not going to lengthen,make muscles longer, we're just.
(05:08):
The goal is just to take themuscles and the tissues that
surround it to their elastic endrange better, multiple times,
so that they get more pliableand ready to tolerate athletic
intense activity and exercise,versus not doing that and then
immediately sprinting or goinginto a squats and whatever.
There's not enough blood flowin the tissue for it to be ready
(05:31):
to tolerate and create enoughpower output and it's not
pliable enough at this point andthe elastic end range hasn't
been reached and so the tissuesaren't ready to tolerate that
kind of intense activity.
And then after that, foam roll,lacrosse ball workout, tight
tissues that maybe are knottedup or whatever right.
(05:52):
That in total would bepreparing someone's body for
athletic activity.
In total we would call thatlike a warmup, or I like to call
it movement prep.
We're preparing ourselves totolerate.
We're imagine if a sprinter wereto wake up in the morning, gets
his shoes on, gets on the track, doesn't do anything else and
(06:12):
just immediately sprints.
It's a high risk for, likestraining, some muscles right
and the joints aren't ready totolerate that kind of impact too
.
We have to get them ready totolerate the impact.
Another component of that toolike but anyway, in general it's
just to prepare your body totolerate high intensity athletic
(06:33):
physical activity and exerciseand part of that is just
bringing the muscles to theirelastic end range so that when
you take them to stressful endranges with a lot of pressure
and load and tension they're notgoing to freak out on you and
they're not going to strainright, because there's not
enough blood flow and synovialfluid and hyaluronic acid in
(06:55):
there to tolerate andaccommodate that kind of
stressful activity.
That kind of stressful activityAlso, with that too, it's like
part of it is getting the nerves, the neural engagement and
activity to innervate and wakeup and recruit motor units.
All right.
So it's, it's a neuralactivation that also creates
(07:15):
more stability and movementcontrol, but also motor unit
control for power output wheresomething's going to take the
stress too much and that causesthat's what causes issues and
strains and stuff.
If someone's like not warmed upenough, you know, I'm saying
it's like the beer leagues ofsoftball of adults, adult beer
league softball or kickballpeople showing up and I just
like you know, drinking somebeers and then, uh, sprint to
(07:36):
first base and they tear theirachilles or they just strain
their hamstring or somethinglike that.
I've actually seen that a bunchof times.
Live, they're just not readyyet.
Like a little bit too stressfulfor maybe that they've been
doing recently, but also theydidn't warm up.
So a combination of those twothings leads to like severe
injury, and that can be avoided,right.
Or just a little mindfulnesstoo, and then ego lifting or ego
(07:57):
movements Just like I cansprint, I can race you, whatever
You're not ready.
That's a key thing.
So I'm an advocate for foamrolling, lacrosse ball and soft
tissue modalities just to loosenthings up mile faster.
Trigger points the other thing Iwas going to say was part of
(08:19):
like the movement prep andwarmup.
If somebody's lifting weightsright, their strength training
heavy, their first working set,let's say of squats or bench
press or something like thatthey have to build up to that
weight tolerance first, right.
So let's say a person is verystrong and they can squat 500
(08:41):
pounds, let's say like SaquonBarkley or something like that
right, they can back squat like500.
And today we're going to workout, we're going to do five sets
of eight reps, which is a bigworkout.
It's like a good amount of repsfor squat at a high load and we
know that they can max out at500 pounds.
Well, their working sets aren'treally going to start until
(09:05):
they get to like 425, let's sayright, or 405.
But rep one and set one they'renot going to do 405.
They're going to do the warmupI just talked about bike,
elliptical, rower, whatevergeneral warmup to get the blood
flow.
They're going to do mobilitystretching, routine, joint
mobilization stuff, dynamicstretching, some static
stretching I don't hate that andthen activation exercises, part
(09:27):
of their movement prep.
They're going to roll out softtissues, that's, tight hamstring
, quad glute back of theirshoulders, like whatever.
Now they're ready to squat,right, but they haven't like,
squatted yet heavy.
Do you think they're ready todo 405 right now?
Heavy, do you think they'reready to do 405 right now?
No, they have to build up tothat first where they would do
135.
(09:47):
And then they would do 185.
And then they would do 250.
And then they would do 315 fora couple reps, like we're doing,
like three to five reps just tobuild and warm up.
They're also getting the nervesthat innervate the muscles to
wake up and early innervate.
So they're innervating andrecruiting motor units for
strength and stability.
They'd be more efficient andstrong for power output.
(10:09):
If they're not doing that it'sjust going to cause issues.
So they build up, pyramid,building up to the set that they
want to do.
But that's just also part ofthe warmup.
135, 225, 275, 315, 375.
That was four sets.
Right, maybe five, but that'snot the working set because your
(10:31):
max is way higher than that.
You have to build up to thatfirst.
Now you're ready for your firstset.
Your first working set would belike 405.
So that's also part of thewarmup.
So for athletes and activepeople that are intensely
working out, consider that foryourselves too.
For weekend warriors and peoplethat are trying to dabble in
fitness, it wouldn't beadvisable to show up and just
(10:55):
start doing the workout rightaway without building into it
first.
And part of that is the neuralphysiology, the neural
recruitment and neuralactivation for the motor unit
recruitment and proprioceptionand power output and strength.
So just keep that in mind too.
But anyway, those are myinsights.
On foam rollers, lacrosse ballsand massage guns, I don't hate
(11:17):
them at all, but they'reancillary to an actual dynamic
warmup, just to mobilize tissueand not crush tissue.
So don't hesitate to reach outif you have any questions.
We're always here to help out.
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