Welcome — What Myofascial Release Is & Your First Foot Reset

# Welcome — What Myofascial Release Is & Your First Foot Reset

_24-minute session with Olga Derendeeva. Introduction to MFR + foot release fundamentals._

Hello. We're glad to see you at our first MFR recovery program workout. Katyusha will be with us. She'll share her feelings, ask questions. It'll all be light. Anything you're interested in, just ask, because those behind the scenes have the same questions. So, what is MFR? It's myo muscles, and it's the recovery of our muscles and ligaments. Our task, Katyusha, what do you think? To relax muscles, allow them to return to their physiological form, release clamps, blocks. Release clamps and blocks. Make our body more mobile.

And the first thing we'll start with is our feet. Let's do a few rolls from toes to heels and feel how high you can rise onto your toes, how easy it is for you, and if there's any pain anywhere. Good. And now we'll do a few rolls right and left. And here, many people also have painful spots on the outside of the foot. Excellent. Good. And the first thing we're going to do is use our ball. We have these hard, dense, firm balls from in our kit. You can replace them with softer ones if it's very painful for you at first.

Place one foot and slowly start rolling from the heel to the toes. Don't rush. Into the lymph. Our task is to do everything slowly and really feel it in our bodies. We're not rushing. What are we doing? We'll awaken receptors. So working with the roller, with the ball, all these techniques and exercises that Katya and I will show you, they will allow us to awaken the receptors so that we feel our body even better. Now we'll stop so that our forefoot, the front part, is on the floor and the ball is under our heel bone.

Not on the heel itself, but rather under it. Press down. And a little to the right, to the left, we move our heel off the ball. How is it here, Katyush? It's pleasant, but some can't even touch it, it's painful. But Katya trains regularly, so it's already comfortable for her. I have a little trick with my feet. When I realized how important it is to work with your feet every day, I bought an orthopedic mat on wild berries and put it right in front of the sink. And now, every morning when I wash my face, I automatically step on it and then walk, warming up my feet.

It really changes everything. Now place the ball in the center of our foot where the arch is, the highest part of the foot. And here too, we start pressing gently. The pain should be around a six out of 10. Many think that with rollers and balls, you need to massage muscles until you see stars. That's incorrect. Yes, it can be very painful, but then we reduce the pressure. The force of the press needs to be lessened. And now we move to the metatarsal area, the base of our toes. And we start massaging these arches right from the metatarsals, and you'll see rays spreading out.

If we look, the bones protrude here. That's the base of our toes, and we massage where the big toe is. Many people have a bone growing here. Yes, on this side. Next, second toe, third. And just like that, we slowly reach the fifth. Good. And then slowly press. Enough. Compare your two legs now. Walk around, feel them. Do several heel and toe raises, and you'll see the difference in sensations in your muscles. And we'll do everything with the other leg. I'd also like to talk about MFR. Yes, about the roller, because many athletes use it and many people have it at home.

And start with this type, the one without spikes, because many people think that if I take the hardest roller with spikes, everything will be massaged better and the result will be faster. You can make it even worse for yourself just by harming yourself, right? So you should start with softer stories. Now move it under the heel bone. Press a little. Feel it. It should feel like the ball just slid through your muscle like soft butter. And then slowly, we start rolling the heel right and left. A little bit right and left.

Good. If you feel pain somewhere, start pressing less. Good. Move to the center of the foot, and where our arch is highest, press a little. Go over both the inner and outer parts. If you have flat feet, your inner arch will be more constricted. Then pay more attention to this area. If your arches are too high, then focus more on the outer part. This is individual. And we move under the metatarsal part. If you step on the ball correctly, you'll see these bones, the bases of our toes, appear. Start pressing one by one.

You might feel that it was easy on one foot-... but painful on the other. It's normal. We are all a little asymmetrical. Don't be scared. You just need to pay a little more attention to that half of the body. Excellent. Got it, right? Good. We'll put the ball aside for now and go down. Well, today we'll focus more on the legs. Take our roller, place it in the Achilles area. That's a little above the heel, right? Our Achilles tendon, it's quite tight for everyone. And if you find it hard to squat without lifting your heels, if your back hurts, then you definitely need to roll out this line.

Sit down and let your body get used to the pressure on the roller. Start working right and left, slowly with your foot. There's a secret here. The more you relax your leg, the better everything will be rolled out. We don't resist, but allow the roller to penetrate our muscle like soft butter. Katyush, how is it here for you? Very pleasant. Let's do small circular movements, but without tensing your foot too much. Feel how the ligament stretches. We are looking for trigger points. They will be the most painful.

Rotate slowly to the other side, but our task is not only to massage these points, but everything around them. Then you will relax faster. And we slowly start to roll over it. Look, we raise the roller a little higher. We move the pelvis a little closer to the roller. And for those who find it difficult to hang like this on their hands, whose arms are weak, whose wrists hurt, you can leave your pelvis on the floor and just bend your knee. Katyusha is doing it with straight arms, and I will show you the second option.

This one. And we start to twist to the inner part, to the outer. And you will feel, yes, that the sensations will be slightly different. And depending on how you walk, how you place your foot, if you have flat feet, club foot, and so on, either the inner part of the lower leg or the outer will be more constricted. We've worked all the way to the calf muscle. Good. For a muscle to relax, studies show you need to work with it for at least 90 seconds. If you do everything quickly, I have clients who roll their whole body in five minutes.

That's me. Unfortunately, there will be no results. Move a little more onto the calf muscle where there's more bulk. Go where it's most flattened, and also start rolling across, looking for those painful spots. And the foot, look, it's like a rag. So relax everything as much as possible. If you had a strength or jump workout, your calves will definitely let you know about it. All right, and now we roll again. Again, I'll show you a simpler version without lifting the pelvis, while Katyusha did it with straight arms, which will apply more pressure.

If you're a beginner, I'm showing you a simpler option. You can press down a bit more with your hands. But again, the pain on the scale, a tolerable six. And we'll spend a bit longer on the part that's more painful. Find it. For some, it will be the center. For some, the inner part. For others, the outer. Roll it out. I realize now that these are probably great workouts to do before bed, because I, for example, have restless leg syndrome, and sometimes I can't fall asleep for a long time because my legs are overstrained.

And this kind of relaxation, I think, is ideal for falling asleep quickly. It was once said that MFR greatly contributes to stretching, improving athletic performance, but there's no scientific data to support that. Let's switch legs. But before we move on to the other leg, let's do a soft finger massage. Look, from bottom to top, we'll use springy movements, gently squeezing, one, two, three. And today, MFR is still great to use for recovery. It can be both before and after a workout, but it doesn't improve our flexibility and doesn't affect our performance.

Good. Excellent. Let's relax our legs. Why are these pauses needed? Everyone wants to finish their workout faster. We all have little time. I understand you perfectly. I'm the same. But you've moved, and our brain needs a little time to process these signals. Understood? So you need that pause to listen to your body. Switch legs. I haven't done this in a long time. I honestly admit, it's been a while.... and now after my vacation, I feel goosebumps inside and blood circulation improves. Start swaying left and right.

When you do it regularly, you might feel that nothing hurts anymore. Your muscles are used to the crawl, and it feels like there's no result. But that's not true. We've just adapted to these sensations. Let's do it in a circle. Slow movement with a relaxed foot. Good. And in the opposite direction. Katiuska, how does it feel? Right and left. Different? Different? No, my left leg was clearly stiffer. Harder, right? Yes. But it's harder to do the exercise on it. Of course, with regular workouts now. So, it probably gets more tense there.

Katya and I have moved a little closer to Valik, and now we start rolling along the muscle. We'll divide our training a bit with you. Today, the focus will be on legs. For the next sessions, we'll do more for the back. We'll use different techniques in each workout. You can mix them. You can combine several workouts together. Yes, if you have time. That's also great. Our users on fall into several groups. Some write, "Make workouts shorter because there's no time," while others ask, "When will there be hour-long classes?" Just combine them and do two workouts in a row.

Good. We are now moving towards our midpoint. Our piriformis muscle. And we start searching left and right for points that are really palpable. Yes, there's something there, like a string. It jumps, right? If you find such areas in your muscles that are jumping, it will feel like a hard knot. So stay at that point and slowly, slowly roll that spot from all sides, lengthwise. The fibers in your leg muscles, which we are discussing now, run like this along the leg. Therefore, when we roll more along the length, we will achieve relaxation faster.

When we massage with such tapping across the muscle, we, so to speak, tone the muscle more. Meaning, it can even shorten more. And generally, the more planes you work in, the better. Today is our first introductory session. Some are doing this for the first time, and it will be quite painful. We're removing it. Later, we will perform slightly different variations. Relax well. Excellent. We'll now move to the back of the thigh, and let's do both legs today. This is also a beginner option. Sit on top of the thigh in the middle.

We're on our hands here, and we start rolling ourselves from- The beginning of the thigh to the knee. We never roll the area behind the knee, nor the groin area. These are our lymph nodes, and we don't touch them. If everything feels comfortable here, not painful, quite pleasant, you can cross one leg over the other and roll thoroughly with this extra pressure. So the second leg creates. It's already more noticeable. Turn your body inward, then outward. And find where it hurts more. Not exceeding a six on the pain scale.

I found it. Search, search for such spots. Everyone has them. Good. We roll forward a little. That's normal. Excellent. Well, how? Nice. Let's do the other leg. Sneaking into this program today after yesterday's long run is pure bliss. Thigh muscles are quite large. Yes, gluteal muscles. And our thigh muscles are the largest in our body, so we can pay a little more attention to them. Today is our first session, and we've spent a lot of time on our feet and shins, because if we don't relax them here, it's almost useless to go further, so to speak.

In the next workout, we'll do a little less for the feet. At some point, it feels like my knee is twitching. You might feel that. Look, if you feel sharp, shooting pains, it means you might be pinching a nerve somewhere, and we have a deep nerve running along the outer line of the thigh, for example. So we don't roll exactly on that side, either slightly to the back or slightly to the front. We also don't go close to the knees, to that hollow behind the knee.You must roll for a minute and a half, otherwise it's useless.

After a workout, it's clear why we do this. We roll our thighs, relieve the load, or so it seems. Everything relaxes immediately, and so on. But for girls, if you don't want your thighs to grow too much and only want to work your glutes, let's turn over and do the front surface. Let's go. Then you can roll out the front of your thigh before your workout. Agreed? Five minutes before training. Then your muscles will be more relaxed and accordingly will work less during strength exercises. We're doing a simple version.

Lie down with both legs on the middle, and we slowly, slowly, just a couple of centimeters up, a couple of centimeters down, roll it out. It's painful. It's painful this way. What do we do? We bend our legs, bend them, and do the same thing with bent legs. This way it's not painful. Excellent. This is an option for beginners now. The first workout is so simple. We're rolling out the area closer to the knees and the joint. Now, right? At ease. No. Now it's comfortable. It's comfortable now. These spots are really tight for me.

They're like that for everyone. At first, believe me, it's normal. Roll up a little higher to the middle of your thigh. Still here. Look, when we stand in this elbow plank position, don't let your lower back sag. Engage your core. This is a workout, right? Not exactly a total relaxation. And don't drop your neck either. That's important because you want to slump again. Yes. Your head isn't hanging. And we move a little higher, but without touching our groin areas. Good. Excellent. Try to straighten your legs now.

Straighten them and try to roll yourself fully along the muscle from the knee to the hip. And again, slowly move up, down, and feel which parts the muscle rolls over, how this hard cord jumps in some areas. Now, what do we do? We place our feet slightly outward with our heels, making our legs pigeon-toed, and do a few more rolls. We have moved more to the outer part of our thigh. Good. You can add millimeter by millimeter. If it hurts so much that you can't move, don't do such rolls yet. Just get used to it. This might take a few days.

Now we bring our heels inward into a Pilates position, but our feet are relaxed. And now we roll closer to the inner part of the thigh. Listen to your legs here. How are you, Katyusha? It's right around the knees. All the pain migrates, all the pain migrates to Katya. Let's dissolve it. I know about this spot because when there's an exercise where you put your heel over the knee of the other leg, I can't do it because it hurts me. This is your growth area, so to speak. Look, everything that's painful for you, everything you can't do, that's hard. That's what you need to work on more, simply.

That's all. Good, good. Just a little more. Excellent. Excellent. Yeah? Feel better? Good. Slowly come down and move away. Take out the bolster. Let's sit on our heels. I really want to stretch like this. Good. Slowly come up. Place one leg in front of you and from below. We tap. You can shift more weight back onto your leg. And we smooth it out from bottom up. This is also MFR, so we can do it with a roller, with fingers, palms, balls, anything. And the other leg too. Look, the workout is already over, right? For the first time, we got acquainted with valik, got acquainted with the sensations from MFR.

Now, we roll gently. And it would seem, what did we do? We rolled the shin a bit, the back of the thigh a bit, and the front a bit, right? And we spent so much time. Stand up. Let's walk. How are your legs? Very pleasant. Like after a massage, right? Yes, that's really true. Well, we're looking for you and waiting for you further. We'll add new elements, new exercises with each workout. And we hope this will be useful to you. It definitely will. Bye.