Just like all other full contact martial arts, injuries in Muay Thai are a given. You will hardly find someone who practices Muay Thai and doesn’t have a bruise or a minor injury of some kind. Whether it was a minor shoulder or a tweaked knee, injuries can keep you out of the gym.

With the modern lifestyle, the poor posture in which you have to work is the center of problems that leads to muscles either being too active or too inactive. You may have heard people complaining about their hips, lower backs and weak glutes. Add Muay Thai training and you have yourself a recipe for back issues and hips-related issues. The hard training exercises that Muay Thai practitioners have to endure require that their muscles be given the right posture and relaxation exercise to heal and repair.

A Heal Yourself Tool

One of the ways to prevent such injuries is using the correct posture with foam rolling. Foam rolling is a self-Myofascial release technique that can be used by you at home as a physical therapy treatment. It is used by athletes and Muay Thai fighters to inhibit overactive muscles. The stretching and the form utilize the concept of autogenic inhibition to relax the muscles, improve tissue extensibility and allow the antagonist muscles to activate.

A foam roller is your very own personal deep tissue massager that you can use any time after a Muay Thai session. It provides soft tissue therapy that improves the quality of the muscles you are rolling on it, relaxes that particular muscle, and gets rid of the knots of that target muscle.

It is important to foam roll using the proper technique. You need to focus on the muscle you want roll and wait till you find a knot. You must do the roll slowly and gently for at least 30 to 60 seconds, back and forth in order to give the muscle time. It may be painful depending on the condition of the muscle but the pain goes away. The more you foam roll the muscle, more the muscle tissue improves.

Foam rolling is fast, easy and effective. You don’t even need to go see a physiotherapist as this can be easily done at home. However it will be a good idea to consult your Muay Thai instructor to learn the right form of foam rolling. You don’t want to do it wrong and end up with another injury, never hesitate to ask questions from your instructor; after all, you are paying him for a physical session and it is his/her job to ensure that you learn the ways of foam rolling. If the instructor doesn’t know about foam rolling then you can consult your gym’s fitness trainers as they will be well versed in the ways of foam rolling.

If you want to work your major muscles then a foam roller is all you need. However, if you want to pinpoint a muscle group then you can even use a tennis ball. At Arashi Do Martial Arts in Edmonton, our Muay Thai instructors teach their students the best ways to recover from sessions, including the use of a foam roller. This Self-Myofascial release technique is excellent for muscle relaxation and repair.

Come down to Arashi Do Edmonton and try out one of our great  programs like Muay Thai, Fundamental BJJ, Women’s Only BJJ or Children’s BJJ for ages 4-7 and 8-14.

All those and you get a 30 DAY FREE TRIAL!