Posts from the ‘Thai Yoga Massage’ Category

For all you New Year’s Resolution people, here’s one to add to your list:

Buy a foam roller. Now.

Don’t like resolutions? Fine.

Backache? Stiff neck? Sore shoulders? Tight hamstrings? Tight…ass?

I repeat. Buy a foam roller. Now.

I swear, this thing has done more for me in the past week than anything else. As you might remember, my body has been testing me in all sorts of ways in the past few months. First a back injury, then a broken foot, then major muscle and joint pain. The back was by far the most debilitating though. A few days before Christmas I was at a theater and actually had to leave because it hurt so badly to sit in the seat. The back doctor I saw basically told me to “avoid forward bending for 8 weeks.” Um…ok. YOU TRY THAT.

I know that things are getting tighter these days since I’ve had to pretty much avoid all traditional yoga poses (broken foot = big clunky boot). So about a week ago I decided I was going to try anything and everything I knew I could do on my mat. Starting with kneeling sun salutations. I’m going to post a video of this little ditty soon, but it goes like this:

• Child’s pose
• Inhale to knees, arms to sky
• Exhale hands down in front to you, slide forward as you bring chest and chin to the floor (hips up, back arched)
• Finish exhale with entire body on mat, hands underneath shoulders
• Inhale into cobra, draw shoulders back, collarbone wide
• Exhale push back into child’s pose
• Repeat 8-10x

My teacher Marco taught this in his Slow Flow and I just fell in love with the practice. Opens hips, chest, shoulders, side body and gets spinal fluids going. Score!

But wait, this is about foam rolling. Yes. Meet your new best friend:

Foam rollers feel really hard and I’m not gonna lie, they hurt. But it’s that GOOD HURT – the one that makes you beg for the male massage therapist with the big hands. That’s how you know you’re hitting the good spots!

So what should you use it for, you ask? Everything.

I intuitively knew the tightness in my back was stemming from a lot of places: glutes, hamstrings, IT band, quads and the muscles from the neck down to the sacrum. Yes – that’s a lot. Yet it’s all the same. Remember the conversation about fascia? Everything is connected, so are you really surprised?

My favorite is workin’ the piriformis and the glutes (ie. your booty!):

Click through for some other tips from Runner’s World.

For those of you with pain and tightness in the shoulders, try rolling along your mid- to upper-back with your hands laced behind the nape of your neck. Every time I do this, I literally hear cracking along my spine and it feels like an instant chiropractic adjustment. It got rid of this nagging pain in my right shoulder literally in one day.

The coolest thing about foam rolling is that you are basically getting free myofascial release therapy and you control everything: the pressure, how long you spend on one area, what gets more attention. So here’s what you can do.

• Use the foam roller every day after you stretch. (You are stretching, right?)
• Roll slowly and evenly. Imagine a massage: how slow do you like it?
• If you’ve got serious IT band tightness from running, cycling, etc. be sure to give the outside of your thighs extra attention
• When you hit a spot that is really talking to you – and believe me, you will – stay there for at least 30 seconds
• It’s going to hurt at times. If an area is too tender, adjust your body weight accordingly
• Breathe through the pain and mentally soften the spots you’re working
• Remember: You can’t release muscles when you’re tightening them!

You can buy these for very little money and in different sizes. I opt for the shorter one because it’s easier to maneuver and I can travel with it. In fact, I took this home for Christmas and after all the gifts were opened, guess what my 4 nieces and nephews were fighting over to play with??

Cheers to rolling into 2012 tension-free!