Rolfing For Endurance Athletes
If you are an endurance athlete like a triathlete, runner, or cyclist, chances are you are looking to prevent pain and improve your performance. First lets address why you may have gotten there in the first place.
We constantly use our bodies to adapt to (or to alter) the forces acting on us, our bodies themselves continuously change in response to the demands we make on them. When we sprain an ankle, we learn a new way of walking. But the new gait may lead weak muscles to become stronger, and previously strong muscles to weaken. It may lead to lengthening of tendons subjected to new strain. Over time this builds new patterns that become our new way of performing. These patterns restrict our movements, which can cause a lack of circulation to the muscles and poor function of the body as a system.
As joints, muscles and fascia gain freedom, the major segments of the body rotate and hinge more freely on one another. There is less pitching of the body from side to side in running and less rising of the body weight with each step. Conserved energy is available for the next leg in your race.
This type of therapy is also known to help the athletes who have reached a plateau in performance. If you find yourself logging the hours without improvement, its probably because you’ve trained all you can, you’ve got all the equipment and you’ve built the engine, but your body is holding you back. Rolfing improves your functions, taking you to that next level of fitness.