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INTRODUCTION 0:04
Welcome to the fit and healthy Denver podcast where we discuss all things revolving around health, fitness and wellness in the amazing state of Colorado so you can get behind the scenes information from industry insiders, special events, and more. Coming up is our host, physical therapist and strength coach, Dr. Jamie Beauvais. And here we go.
JAMIE 0:30
Today we’re talking about voodoo, but probably not the voodoo magic you’re thinking about. What we’re talking about today is voodoo flossing. Now I know that term may be a little bit foreign to you. Or maybe you’ve heard it just kind of casually thrown around, but don’t really know what it is. Voodoo. Flossing is something that you can use to improve your range of motion on your joints, help with pain, and a bunch of other things. So I thought we’d go over that in this little minisode kind of add a little in depth, interview, flossing, what it is, how to use it, how you can benefit and many other things. So first, let’s just start with what is due to flossing. So video flossing was popularized by Kelly’s threat of mobility WOD. And he’s really big in the CrossFit world. And flossing is a method of wrapping a muscle group or a joint real tightly with a stretch band. And not like these bands are a little bit thicker than like your typical Thera bands. They’re two to four inches wide, and you know, about a quarter of an inch thick. And so you stretch this over a muscle. And then you kind of overlap it as you’re going over the muscle and over the joint. So while you have stretched these tissues with the beautiful loss, you will perform certain exercises and move with the goal of improving mobility and decreasing pain. So this is a method of soft tissue mobilization and manipulation that utilizes a latex rubber band similar to resistance bands, but much more durable and less stretchy. And use this for intermittent compression during passive and active self mobilizations. So what is it actually doing? And how did it get that name? Well, it’s meant for improving mobility. But here’s the interesting thing. The medical community isn’t exactly sure how this stuff works. We do know, however, that it improves pain, and it improves range of motion. Hence the name voodoo. We don’t exactly know how it works. So just like any other mobility advice it’s going to create short term perceptions of increased mobility and improve pain through manipulating the nervous system. But since we don’t know exactly why it’s making those changes, they do. So there are theories on what it is doing. And a lot of these include shearing and gliding of the tissues. So if you think of your skin, and then the fascia, the connective tissue under your skin, in between your skin and the muscles, and then the muscles, think about that as different pieces of paper on top of each other. And so when you compress that, like when you wrap it tightly with the Voodoo floss, and then you move your body, while the outer layers are compressed, those inner layers can slide and glide. So it really helps the layers of skin and fascia sliding glide, communicate with the nervous system and bring awareness to a certain area and improve the joints gliding. So it typically works best to restore sliding and gliding surfaces, reduce myofascial and muscular trigger points and pain to help move areas that have scar tissue and reduce inflammation, swelling in the joints and improve range of motion where there is a restriction or limitation. How should you do it? So what you do is you start to wrap this, this works best around joints, you can use it on muscles, and soft tissues as well. And I’ll go over that in just a second. But it works best around joints. So let’s just say your elbow. So you’re going to start before the elbow, you’re going to start wrapping that voodoo floss around your forearm going up towards the elbow and up towards the shoulder. And you’re going to put about 50% tension and you’re going to overlap that band about 50%. And you’re going to go around that elbow. And then you’re going to once it’s wrapped and then it’s tucked in so it doesn’t break apart and unravel, then you’re going to move that joint about 20 times or roughly about 60 seconds. You don’t want this wrapped to be too tight. And you don’t want to keep it on for too long. Because if you do it too tightly, you can cut off circulation. So we kind of have a saying, not saying we kind of have a protocol or after it’s wrapped. You take it passively. So let’s use that elbow. So I would take my other hand, grab my forearm and kind of been that elbow back and forth for about 30 seconds. Then I would do it actively. So I would take that elbow that’s round. After using my bicep, I would bend that elbow and straighten it for about 30 seconds. And then I would do it weight bearing. So in this case, push ups would be a great example. And then you take off the band. And so you know, about a minute and a half total. And then you kind of move that arm around, try some things, again, should feel better, should feel looser, have less pain. So the goal of the band is to be able to create some compression without cutting off the circulation completely.
JAMIE 5:29
So ideally, about 30 seconds to two minutes, this whole process, you may have a slight blanching of the skin during that time. But you don’t want it so tight that like your hand is going numb, or wherever distally to the where you’re wrapping, you don’t want that to go numb. Once you do remove the band, you will kind of notice an increase in blood flow back into that area within several seconds. And then you should feel some new ranges of motion. And then you can repeat it. But usually once is enough, you do want to be mindful while you’re doing this, it’s not supposed to be painful. If it is, you should not do it or not use it. It’s not meant to restrict the blood flow. And you want to be careful of that sensation of numbness and tingling. So where does this work best? Like I mentioned earlier, usually around the extremity joints here. So your knees, your ankles, your hips, your elbows, your wrists, shoulders a little bit, they’re difficult to wrap, but they work well there too. And then the connective tissue and so we think you know it is providing some compression around the joint. And that can help to internally take some pressure off of the joint and then you move through it, that could be one benefit. And then when you unwrap it, and there is that flush of new blood flow in there, that can be good to just kind of push out some of the old blood flow and kind of help restore things back to the way they should be and bring some health into the joint as well. So you just want to use it and wrap it around the skin around that joint. And then you just want to think about where do I want to move better, and you wrap it around that area and kind of move like I told you to previously. So you can do this over scars, let’s say I had a scar on my forearm that was healed, you could wrap it around the soft tissue around the forearm. And the way I look at this is almost like that band that’s going up and down. my forearm is almost like a giant extension of my hands. So now I can grab the band and I can pull towards my forearm, and I can pull all that skin and connective tissue gently. So it’s almost like I now have just a giant hand that’s so much bigger and can be more effective. And that’s how I use the clinic. And so now I can really get those tissues that are kind of stuck together or just not moving well to really slide and glide well. So some people will use this for what’s called blood flow restriction training. And that’s where you try to mostly cut off the blood flow and work around it. And there’s a lot of benefits to blood flow restriction training. However, this is not the same thing. And it should not be used for blood flow restriction training. For blood flow restriction training, you need specialized devices, because you do need to cut off the blood flow at certain percentages like blood clot, blood pressure and things like that. Since you can’t measure that you should not use this for that I know there are videos out there of people doing it and how to do it. I would not I would highly not recommend that. Yeah, we don’t want to try that. This is potentially unsafe, if you try that. And you could, if you try to tighten it that tightly, you could damage some nerves and blood vessels in that area. So when Shouldn’t you use flossing? So this isn’t a medical device, but I can give you some kind of just educational information around it. So floss can be used for the majority of the generally healthy population. But if you have pre existing heart or blood clot conditions, you shouldn’t use the band’s made of latex. So if you’re allergic to latex, you shouldn’t use it. You shouldn’t use it over open wounds. That’s not a good idea. You shouldn’t use it if there’s no nerve issues. So yeah, thanks to circulatory issues, nerve issues, open wounds. You know, those are generally bad ideas. So, if voodoo floss and causes pain, if you’re unsure how to do it, and it or it doesn’t help, or you think you might have an injury, you need to see a medical professional. So does this actually solve your issue? Probably not. Flossing is better at decreasing pain and improving range of motion temporarily. And it needs to be part of a broader program to not only fix the pain, but most importantly fix the cause of the pain. Now if your elbow is just a little stiff, and or your knee or ankle and you just want to gain a little range of motion, or it’s just a little achy and sore from a hard workout, that’s a good time to intentionally think about using Buddha floss. So, do a little research on your own. Learn a little bit more about it, how to do it. We’ve got some information and some videos on our Instagram and Facebook and our YouTube channel on how to use it. But do some research and see if you think maybe adding voodoo floss could help you to help your workouts and your health. Not enough. Talk to you in the next episode. All right, Mike.
OUTRO 10:30
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