Floss Band Joint Compression Training

by Mitch Hauschildt, MA, ATC, CSCS

I have been using floss bands off and on for the past 5 or 6 years with moderate success.  Kelly Starrett first exposed me to the idea of floss bands with his voo doo band strategies in his online videos years ago.  I have found some moderate success over the years while using them for simple mobility training, but nothing that really knocked my socks off.

The technique that I have always used in the past has been pretty simple…wrap the band around the body tightly and then move through a range of motion.  After a couple of minutes with them wrapped, remove the band and go through the range of motion again.  Usually, there is some sort of an improvement in their available range.

I have traditionally used them for areas of the body that have quite a bit of soft tissue such as the thigh, lower leg or forearm.  In those areas, the bands are easy to wrap and my understanding at that time of what we were doing with floss bands lined up with what I was seeing.

The explanation that I had at the time, while I didn’t fully understand it, was that when we compress a muscle and then glide (floss) the muscle within that compressed tissue, it would improve sliding and gliding by mechanically freeing up the tissue that is restricted.

Over recent years, my understanding of the human body and mechanisms of how we move has changed significantly, thus my understanding of what is taking place with floss bands has changed.  I won’t say that there isn’t any mechanical changes that can take place, but I do now believe that people usually see improvements with a floss band because of a neurological effect rather than a mechanical effect.

Anytime you touch the skin, you interact with the brain.  Its that simple.  How you interact is your choice (noxious vs safe stimulus), but there is no doubt that you are essentially touching the brain when you touch the skin.  When you think about floss bands as interacting with the brain through the skin, they open up and offer a much larger spectrum of treatment options than most of us traditionally consider.  We can use it for edema control, tissue glide, manual tissue mobilization, to assist movement patterns, and to help the brain balance safety and danger.  It also opens up applications for new areas of the body when we consider these alternative applications.

One technique that has proven very effective for me lately with my patients when using a floss band has been to physically compress a joint.  I’m wrapping places on the body such as the shoulder, trunk and pelvis that I would have never consider before.  I can’t be sure of exactly what the mechanism is, but with my current understanding, what I believe is going on is that with compression around a joint we provide a feeling of safety for the brain at that site.  When our brain feels safe, it relaxes and pain is reduced and range of motion gets better.  This is because the brain is constantly balancing safety and danger, hoping to feel safe.

Recently I have seen really nice results with 2 shoulder patients and a low back patient when using a floss band to compress the joint.  One shoulder patient is a swimmer who recently subluxed his shoulder and has a small labral tear.  His goal is compete in their conference swim meet next week prior to having his shoulder surgically repaired.  The other shoulder patient is a competitive runner and has had her shoulder surgically repaired but is getting a lot of spasms throughout her shoulder complex in response to the repair.  As mentioned, I have also used the band on a low back patient who has struggled with SI dysfunction and a functional leg length dependency.

What all 3 patients have in common is a joint that doesn’t have a lot of natural stability.  Even in the case of the shoulder that has been repaired, she dealt with multidirectional instability for most of her life, so her brain is not used to a joint that works efficiently.  When a joint doesn’t work efficiently, the brain knows it and will do what it can to protect it.  That usually results in a pain response.  Remember that pain is a response to a perceived threat, not an actual threat.  There is little correlation between tissue damage and pain.

When the band applies compression to their joints, it provides of feeling of stability, control and safety to the brain.  It takes the brain off of threat and honestly, it is like magic seeing their range of motion improve and pain reduce.

I’m not saying that this is a fix for multidirectional instability or SI dysfunction in and of itself.  What I am saying is that a floss band that provides compression (and a feeling of safety) to the brain, will open up a neurological training window that we should take advantage of with our mobility, stability, motor control, and strength training.

Expand on your use of floss bands.  I’m pleasantly surprised every day on how they can help my patients.