Improving Strength through Myofascial Release and Recovery

Most students come to Mill Creek without much knowledge of proper weightlifting form, mechanics, or safety. Over the past few years we’ve been able to help many students improve in these areas, thanks to equipment funded by the EFD. Dumbbells, benches, Plyo/Squat Boxes, medicine balls and resistance bands, along with my participation in the Iron Dread program over the last two years, is truly helping our middle school students make a smooth transition into our high school strength and conditioning program. This EFD cycle, our focus is on improving what we can teach our students about recovery and myofascial release. The Iron Dread program asks students to push their bodies to the maximum, however Coach Whittaker stresses the importance of recovery. According to the Cleveland Clinic, “Myofascial release therapy is a type of gentle, constant massage that releases tightness and pain throughout myofascial tissue.” Myofascial tissue covers muscles, nerves, veins, arteries, and bones. Athletes can benefit from myofascial release by improving both the flexibility and mobility of their joints and muscles. Improved joint and muscle flexibility and mobility allows athletes to gain a greater range of motion, significantly enhancing performance and reducing the likelihood of injury. In addition to improved range of motion, myofascial release can speed up muscle recovery after intense workouts. The Iron Dread program utilizes foam rollers, lacrosse balls, and resistance bands to stretch and massage student joints and muscles. Although we have many bands as well as tennis and lacrosse balls, we currently only have a handful of foam rollers. We would really like to have a class set of foam rollers so that we can instruct a full class on the benefits of foam rolling and take them through foam rolling workouts. Once students understand the process of foam rolling, they will be better able to include foam rolling into their individual Muscle Monday and Workout Wednesday Workouts. While we expose our students to Yoga a few times each quarter, adding in a foam rolling component would improve our lessons on flexibility and provide students with the opportunity to add additional flexibility training into their workouts.
Increasing student knowledge on myofascial release, flexility, and recovery is our main focus on this grant application. However, there was an additional item that we were not able to purchase with our awarded grant money last fall. We are happy to see how much the students enjoy using the weight benches that we purchased a few years ago and would really like to provide them with another bench to use. Adding one more bench to our arsenal will allow each class (7th and 8th grade) to have two benches of their own. Students utilize the benches multiple times throughout the week in 7th and 8th grade physical education as well as in our Personal Fitness elective.

We believe foam rollers and an additional bench will also help our students toward achieving many of the state standards focused on the 5 Health Related (cardiorespiratory endurance, muscular endurance, muscular strength, flexibility, and body composition) and 6 Skill Related (power, agility, coordination, speed, balance and reaction time) Components of Fitness. Michigan Department of Education Content Standards for 7th and 8th grade that will be enhanced by the approval of this grant proposal include:

-Participates in a variety of strength- and endurance-fitness activities such as weight or resistance training. (S3.4.7)
-Participates in moderate to vigorous muscle- and bone-strengthening physical activity at least 3 times per week. (S3.6.7)
-Identifies the components of health-related fitness (muscular strength, muscular endurance, flexibility, cardiorespiratory endurance, body composition) and explains the connections between fitness and overall physical and mental health. (S3.1.8)
-Plans and implements a program of cross-training to include aerobic, strength and endurance, and flexibility training (S3.4.8)
-Designs and implements a warm up/cool down regimen for a self-selected physical activity (S3.12.8)
-Accepts responsibility for improving one’s own levels of physical activity and fitness. (S4.1.8)

The addition of foam rollers will allow additional opportunities for our Physical Education, Personal Fitness, and Sports Medicine students to:

-Enhance Muscle Monday knowledge by learning how to roll out the muscles we talk about
-Reduce the amount of time it takes to recover from tough workouts and prevent sore muscles
-Learn ways to improve the flexibility and mobility of all major joints by participating in a variety of foam roller mobility stretches
-Improve core stability
-Use foam rollers as a replacement for yoga blocks
-Incorporate foam rollers in student created physical therapy exercises

A class set of foam rollers would also allow us to play new and creative tag and invasion games or agility exercises while the rollers are standing tall.

The addition of a weight bench will allow additional opportunities for our Physical Education and Personal Fitness students to:
-Use a bench in their Muscle Monday workout
-Utilize a bench in their student created Workout Wednesday Workout
-Have an equal number of official benches for 7th and 8th grade students to use
-Learn how to adjust a bench for lying, inclined and seated exercises