Dr. Kelly Starrett

But if we do engage in 10 minutes of soft tissue work, we found that that had a huge parasympathetic input, like a massage.

You know, everyone gets up off the massage table and is like, let's fight.

It just doesn't happen, right?

But a little bit of self-massage, you're signaling to the brain it's safe, you're relaxing, you're touching things that are tight or restricted or restoring how tissues are sliding and gliding, and then we'll get the rest of it tomorrow.

And what you'll find is that your brain is like, we sit on the ground, then we do the soft tissue, then we go to bed.

Now you're starting to be set up a habit.

Now you start to downregulate, your breathing changes.

That's really, really powerful.

Soft tissue work is one feature of the whole system.

It's not the only feature.

Isometrics are really powerful, but what's most important is that we have a range of motion we're trying to improve and we're doing test, retest on that range of motion.

Did that restore?

Or you mentioned DOMS, delayed onset muscle soreness, workout really hard, you went for a run.

That running is getting those tissues sliding and gliding again, right?

Just restoring those free nerve endings, getting fascia to move, right?

I submit that, and the research supports that, if you do soft tissue work after heavy training, decrease your DOMS.

So is that valid, to have less soreness and pain after training?

Seems good to me.

I liken it to that.

I'll point two resources for you.