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Do you suffer from an injury like tennis elbow/tendonitis and think that you can’t recover or ever workout again? See how resistance bands and Soft Tissue ART therapy can help.
Have you ever been injured and use that as an excuse to rest or “take some time off?”
Are you recovering from an injury or surgery and think the best thing to do is lay sedentary?
Well as High impact sports bra experts at Shefit Sports Bra, we think it’s best to use this time to change things up and or trick your body and at the very least just get up and move. It’s a well known fact, that after months of the same regimen your body stops responding and will not give you the results you are working so hard to achieve.
If you have noticed that what you are doing is not giving you the results you want then maybe it’s time to change it up. Let’s say maybe your goal has changed, maybe you want to build muscle and burn more fat, and then this would require a change.
Maybe you are plain ole bored, this is a great indication that things need to be changed and maybe pick a goal that will help you get out of that rut, and let’s face it we all have ruts. Last but not least, something is out of your control, a work schedule or maybe an injury or even surgery.
If you fall into any of these categories then I highly suggest you think about a regimen change and a way to heal or get down to what really is causing these issues. This is what happened to me last summer when I was changing things up and looking to shift my goals from bikini competitions to crossfit style training. After about three months in, I pushed myself a little harder then maybe my body would have liked and something went wrong in my elbow. Immediately, I noticed the pain after a clean and press round. I went home iced it and continued to work through the pain. After about three more months of unbearable pain I saw a doctor, only to learn that I have a severe case of tendonitis or tennis elbow. The doctor told me to rest and gave me a cortisone shot (looking back this was not the best choice); this relief allowed me in my mind the ability to keep going. So I did, for three more months I continued to ignore the pain and clear signs of an injury. I went back to see rounds of specialists, physical therapists, acupuncture, you name it I did it.
Fast forward almost 6 months and I could not even lift up a gallon of milk or brush my teeth without falling to the floor. I decided to take the advice of another specialist and I stopped lifting entirely and went to physical therapy three times a week for five more long months.
After now almost seven months of rest, cortisone, physical therapy you name it, I still was not any better. I also was itching to pick up a weight and keep my workouts going. I knew in order to get better I could not continue to lift like I was, since my arm needed major rest to heal the tendonitis I had created. It was so bad it started to hit my other elbow from all the compensation I was doing for the injured arm.
During this time of rest I chose to use resistance bands instead of weights to maintain my size along with HIIT cardio and plyometrics. Since I was not allowed to lift any weights at all, not even pick them up to put on my back or shoulders to lift my lower body, that there was no way I was going to let all my hard work disappear. I did not want to lose muscle mass while I healed and so I tried new avenues on which to heal from. I turned to resistance bands; I did all my leg and lower body workouts with resistance bands. I lifted absolutely no arms to keep the inflammation from getting worse. Since I could not lift a weight onto my back or shoulders for legs the resistance bands helped me to change it up and continue to maintain my size. I had four different resistance levels I used. I would add a band around my neck with each set to increase the resistance. I also used allot more leg machines to work my legs instead of free weights, this change up really made me focus on proper form more than usual and helped me to increase my max fat burning effects because I was not resting so long in between sets, which allowed me to keep my heart rate high. In the last two months of this now almost year long battle, I found in all my research: ART soft tissue therapy. With a local Chiropractor who is trained in this type of healing therapy for athletes and other people who suffer from this very painful condition called tendonitis, I finally feel like there is light at the end of the tunnel.
Tendonitis in a very basic term is your bodies’ way of telling you that you have overworked an area and you have created internal inflammation that needs to heal. You probably have created scar tissue that is actually creating allot of the pain. In order to heal, you have to break up the scar tissue and your body must excrete it naturally. ART or Active Release Technologies/soft tissue management system is a patented developed therapy that only one who is certified can perform. This was my last resort before heading to some type of surgery option, so I gave it a try and in less than two sessions I felt 100% better than I had before doing anything else. Dr. Leahy, who created this therapy observed how muscles, fascia, tendons, ligaments and nerves responded to different types of work and was able to consistently resolve over 90% of his patients problems. In short, this is a type of hands on therapy to treat muscular and soft tissue injuries. Adhesions, or scar tissue cause the motion of muscles and joints to be altered resulting in a wide variety of symptoms including reduced range of motion, loss of strength and pain. Scar tissue builds up at the injury site, trapping these nerves or preventing tendons, ligaments, and muscles to work properly. ART therapy releases the adhesions in the problem area. If you are suffering like me from a form of tendonitis, carpal tunnel, frozen shoulder/rotator cuff problem, tennis elbow, neck or back pain, runners knee, headaches, shin splints, Sciatica, TMJ and muscle pulls and strains then you should find a medical professional or a chiropractor in your area who is certified. ART is not massage, physiotherapy or chiropractic care. While those procedures correct muscle and joint dysfunction, they do not necessarily address the underlying problems caused by scar tissue, which are essentially connective tissue adhesions. If you think you have tried everything like me, and feel like you want to throw in the towel and give up, trust me give this a shot today! Now that I have started to heal and it’s time to start to slowly picking up the weights and get back into a great workout regimen, I want to leave you with an example of a great workout. This is the type of workout I would do on days I would normally lift my legs and or butt, instead I did the same workout but with resistance bands and less time in between sets. Remember, any type of injury, boredom, rut, job change or lack of results in your current workout routine is no excuse to just “take a break!” If you had a shoulder surgery or injury, like I did with my arm then try and let the upper body head but get out and work your lower body, ride a bike, go for a walk, but get up and move. If you have a lower body injury, find a way to use resistance bands while seated on an ab ball or hard chair that allows you to use light dumbbells with proper form while seated. Find a way to just move. At Shefit, we feel it’s most important to dig down deep and find that inner strength: strong beauty and use it to be the best you, you can be.
This is a great 30 minute lower body butt and leg blaster.
Aim for 5-8 rounds of 10 reps, with about 30-45 seconds of rest in between each round. Also increase the resistance as you move through each round. With the resistance band around your neck and placed under your feet. Before you start this, warm up with 10 minutes of a HIIT routine like this:
HIIT warm up workout: Start your timer and aim for 10-12 minutes of this routine. 50 squat jacks 20 jump rope 10 reverse lunge with kick 20 high knees 20 bicycles
WORKOUT:
- Squats with a side abductor (10 each leg: Squat: Leg abductor same leg all 10, then switch)
- Squatted groucho 10 each side (YouTube groucho: get into a squat and stay in it as you lunge forward, come back to squat and repeat same side for 10 then switch, this is a burner)
- Sumo squats
- Deadlifts
- Donkey Kicks (on all fours, band around your neck and around one foot to start, kick back and up towards the ceiling and into your chest repeat, 10 per side then switch)
- Stiff leg dead lifts
- Good mornings
- Jump squats (just squat and jump bands will not come off your feet)
