5 Foam Rolling Techniques To Guarantee A Healthy Summer
Category: Exercises
April showers brings May flowers and also lots of outdoor activities. To help us get ready for all of our summer fun, I wanted to share 5 foam rolling techniques you should be doing!
What is foam rolling?
Foam rolling is a way to relieve muscle tightness by performing myofascial release on yourself with a foam roller. By using foam rolling techniques over our problem areas, or trigger point areas, we can break up connective tissue adhesions we have in our muscles. It’s these adhesions that cause our muscles to become stiff and restrict our movement.
Different types of foam rollers
This is the perfect foam roller for beginners. Has a lot of give which decreases the pressure, and in turn the intensity.
The next step up from a soft roller. These foam rollers will be denser, providing more resistance, and increasing the intensity.
These foam rollers are for experienced foam roller users. They have shallow ridges forming grids that provide little to no give. You should experience a pain level of about 7 out 10 while using this type of roller. The pain should dissipate almost immediately, and you should feel back to normal within 30 minutes.
Deep tissue rollers have deep ridges forming bumps that can really target trigger points. This is for an advanced foam roller user. You should experience a pain level of about 8 out of 10, and once again that pain should dissipate almost immediately.
This type of foam roller takes your standard roller and adds a vibration component. The vibration aims to decrease the pain felt while rolling to help the muscles relax more.
If you’ve never foam rolled before, I would recommend starting with a soft roller so it’s not too painful and they are the most inexpensive. Once you’ve got your foam roller let’s get rolling!
5 Foam Rolling Techniques to Get You Moving
Lay on your back with the foam roller perpendicular (horizontal) to the spine, start the foam roller at the area slightly below the shoulder blades and roll upward. Roll back and forth slowly to relax the spine and soften the thoracic muscles. This is a great technique for those into swimming or rock climbing.
Place the foam roller under your gluteal region. Roll back and forth in a slow short motion while remaining seated on the foam roller. Use your arms to support some of your body weight. Rotate your hips to target different areas of the glute. This is a great foam rolling technique for anyone who likes to play volleyball.
Position the foam roller underneath the back side of the thigh. Roll from the lower gluteal region to the back of the knee using your arms to move your body back and forth. You’ll want to be sure to use this technique if you run at all.
Place the foam roller under the large part of the calves. Cross one leg over and roll back and forth. Switch crossed legs and repeat. If you’re hitting the tennis courts this summer this technique is for you.
Position the foam roller under one of your quads. Swing the other leg out to the side and hold your hips up by placing that knee on the ground. Use your arms to support your torso and roll back and forth from the hip to the top of the knee.
For each one of these foam rolling techniques, you can roll over the area for up to 2 minutes.
Try shifting your body and rotating your legs to target different areas of the muscle while rolling back and forth. If you experience a severe or throbbing pain stop immediately. If you try to push through the pain, you could do further damage to the tissue.
I hope this has helped you learn a bit about foam rolling, and how it can help keep you moving for summer. If you have any questions, or would like to schedule an appointment, don’t hesitate to call us at 7203283088.
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