Sleeping Posture, Massaging your Tendons, preventing injuries and stuff

So in this post I want to talk about some miscellaneous stuff that I think is important to consider, which no one thinks about and which fits in no real category.

Okay we all make a big deal about how our posture throughout the day effects our joint alignment and muscle tonus and how improper posture can lead to pain and restricted mobility. But no one seems to consider that we spend a huge part of every day sleeping and in virtually the same posture, and this probably effects us even more than our conscious posture.

I became aware of this when a while ago I suffered a bad shoulder pull. at least it felt like it. Later I realized that it was actually a trap pull that was making pain radiate from the shoulder. A few easy sets of shoulder rotations, dislocates, and a lot of neck stretches fixed it in no time. But along the way I realized that my neck flexibility was heavily unbalanced, favoring the uninjured side. That is when I realized that I sleep on my front tilting my head to the uninjured side. This stretched that side but contracted the other. As a result something very similar to what happens to the hip flexors while sitting happened to my neck- one side was chronically tight and immobile. I started sleeping flat on my back and I have never had a problem since and my flexibility has balanced itself.

Constant stretching can only fix so much and fixing your sleeping posture will go a long way to solve the root of the problem. You can't change your work schedule, you can't change your classes in school and the desks they give you, but you can change the way you sleep and that corrects a whooping 6-9 hours of bad posture everyday. Much more than you would while trying to consciously fix your posture throughout the day.

Now basically after you fall asleep your body will revert to whatever sleeping posture it is easiest to keep falling asleep in, so that your sleep will be as uninterrupted as possible. This could be anything depending on various psychological reasons (before anyone asks I have no idea what they are). In my case I could not have a sound sleep without sleeping on my face. everyone has a position that makes them feel all comfy and sleepy. But the problem is most of these postures are based on the way your mattress is and human bodies have not evolved to sleep on such soft surfaces. Remember the modern mattress was a uncommon luxury until very recently in human history. Because of this you end up getting comfortable in all sorts of ridiculous positions.

Try sleeping for a night on the bare floor on your face. I dare you. In about an hour your body will figure out the most comfortable way to sleep on the floor is to either lie supine and straight or be in the fetal position on either side. These are also the best positions to sleep in for the joints as well.

So how do you fix this problem? You could do what I did and sleep on the floor for a couple of nights until your habit changes and then try to stick with it on the mattress by falling asleep in that position every night until the body gets used to it. Or you could get a super hard mattress and solve the problem once and for all. also if you can help it, don't use a pillow. If you do use a thin hard one.

Lets talk about tendon massage.

I see guys and girls all over the place foam rolling to no end to prevent and relive pain and stiffness, putting themselves in ridiculous positions to roll hard to get areas like the lats and the shoulders, not to mention the adductors. Why people never use the good old way of massaging themselves with their hands in their free time, I will never understand. Don't waste hours in the gym with this. Granted certain parts of the body you can't reach, like the shoulder baldes and the spine. And certain muscles like the glutes, hamstrings and quads are easier to cover with the foam roller. But beyond these, most of the stuff can be done with your hands at home. More importantly massaging yourself with your hands is more effective for 2 reasons-

1. The pressure area is smaller so you can dig deeper into the tissue. That is way tennis balls are more effective than foam rollers. Fingers are just the next step.
2. You can feel out every part of the muscle and actually get to know your anatomy and find your tendons and focus on the problem areas, instead of wasting time all over.

The first is self explanatory, so lets talk about the second. Fall all the amount of time we spend exercising and keeping notes, very few of us are actually familiar enough with our bodies to know every single thing that is unique to us, our peculiarities, our sore spots, our vulnerable areas etc. You know the difference between a masseuse and a guy with an anatomy book? He actually spent time finding all the muscles and tendons on an actual body. Once you can do that, thee is so much information about anatomy out there that you can massage yourself, and more effectively because you get time to get familiar with your body. And if your body is that important to you to exercise hard on a regular basis, you should be familiar with it as well.

This brings me to being aware of more than just muscles. You need to be aware of your tendons, joints and ligaments, because 90% of the time these are the things that really need constant massage, not the muscles. A decent rub down once a month for the muscles will get rid of most scar tissue build up in the muscles, plus the muscles recover fast. They get a lot of blood flow and the tissues are more dynamic chemically. Its the tendons, joints and ligaments that lack sufficient blood flow and are slow to recover. You know why big benchers spend time doing band pressdowns? To flush the area with blood and synovial fluid in order to help recovery. What if you just rub down your tendons with 2 fingers once a day, your ligaments with 4 fingers once in 2 days, and your joint capsules once in 3 days any way you want? The recovery rate will be much faster and pain will never linger, without fatiguing yourself with high rep movements.

Don't get me wrong, you still need to do high rep movements once in a while to mobilize the joints. But it should not become a necessity. If it does learn to find your tendons and rub them. I see several traditional forms of massage used in yoga and ayurveda that are based entirely on treating the tendons. In fact most tradition massage is based on ligament and tendon massage rather than rubbing the muscles. This is because earlier people did not use balls and foam rollers to massage themselves. Instead they used their hands and found the ligaments and tendons.

And yeah, you need a decent aerobic capacity. I don't care how big you are or how you do it but you can't be completely out of shape and expect to recover form injuries or even your training. Do something to condition yourself and you will feel much better in the long run, have lesser injuries and recover fast every time. Just one thing, don't do so much that it becomes a new source of injury, that is all.