How to Properly Foam Roll Your Quads for Pain Relief and Improved Mobility

Foam Rolling Your Quads

The quads are one of the most important muscle groups to address when it comes to pain relief and joint mobility. While "rolling" can work, we found there is another technique we prefer to significantly help more. This helpful for knee pain, back pain and hip pain while also improving mobility at the knee and hip as well.

Technique

It's called "pin and stretch". The idea is to "pin" down part of the quad by locking the foam roller in place and then "stretching" the muscle tissue by bending the knee back and forth. This helps create more pressure to the quad muscles to reduce tension more effectively.

Positioning

When placing your quad on the roller you want to focus on slightly outside of the thigh. This will target 2 of the 4 quadricep muscles that cause the most issues: Rectus Femoris and Vastus Lateralis. Do NOT(seriously do not) put the foam roller on your IT band. The IT band is comprised of non-contractile tissue, which simply means it does not move, at all., like ever. If you do then you will be putting unnecessary pain, pressure and tears on yourself for no reason.

Timing

For pin and stretch of the quads, you want to find 3-4 spots along the quad and perform 5-10 controlled kicks at each. This should equate to about a minute per leg. 2 sets will be plenty to feel nimbly bimbly with less pain again.‍

When to Perform

Our recommendation is after training/work outs/activities and 30 mins before bed. The two times we need the most muscle relaxation for proper mechanics and recovery. The other time would be when everything feels so tight or painful that you can't move or perform activation drills at all. At this time you can pin and stretch then immediately try to perform other activation drills that provide more sustainable results.

Questions?

Let us know if you have questions about this technique by emailing us contact@xcelmp or through social media! Share this blog with your friends if you like the info, it really helps us a lot! 

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