Heather: Let's bring out the foam roller. What is this piece of kit and what is it for,
why use one. So many questions, well, I'm going to be answering those, as well as taking
you through the essential exercises that you can do with a foam roller to help you get
the most out of this rather wonderful piece of training aid.
[music] What is this? Well, essentially it's a piece
of tubing with some sort of foam around the outside. However, there are plenty of other
similar devices, which you can use in the same way as a foam roller, such as a rolling
pin style massage deck, or a tennis, or even a lacrosse ball. What then is this actually
for and why would you want to use a foam roller? Well, its effects are still debated and surprisingly
there is actually not that much research on it, but it does basically act as a sports
massage. Although obviously, it's going to be self administered, so by rolling your body
over the top of this and applying pressure to certain muscle groups and their surrounding
connective tissue could help to increase blood flow to that area. It potentially can work
on reducing adhesions, as well as limiting muscle soreness and even helping to release
some trigger points. It is a form of myofascial release, which
is basically releasing the muscles in their surrounding fascia. Like I mentioned, scientific
research on my fascia release is limited. However, you still see top level athletes
regularly carrying around a foam roller with them using it before training session, or
as part of their recovery afterwards, and physiotherapists and coaches are often prescribing
it. You'll see groups of athletes doing a foam roller session. There must be some benefit,
even if there isn't hard science there and there have been a few smaller studies that
have been able to show that it can help improve your range of motion and your flexibility
and reduce muscle soreness, which then in turn will help with recovery, and all of this
obviously adds up to helping with performance, and it can even reduce the chance of getting
injured. We've talked about the benefits of a foam roller, but you also need to be aware
of the potential risks they are small, but if you use it excessively, then it could end
up leading to pain or muscle soreness and even bruising.
The same goes with the type of foam roller. If you're using something too hard on an area
that's really sensitive, say a hockey ball on a really shotter muscle that's close to
the surface, then that could cause pain. Just make sure you listen to your body and you
don't push it too hard. How should you actually use a foam roller? If you aim to work with
it for 10 to 20 minutes, you can put that either ahead of a session. It's part of your
warmup, or afterwards for recovery. There is no reason you can't actually do a stand
alone foam roller session, but apparently there's more evidence that supports incorporating
it into your session will give you a little bit more benefit. Then you want to be applying
a firm, but not too hard of pressure over each muscle group for 20 to 40 seconds.
Or if it's a really large muscle, then you might need to do it in sections as you go.
It's very much about listening to your body and finding out some areas where you feel
the benefit, other areas you'll feel that are really sore to start with. Again, experiment
with the type of foam roller and how just how firm you want it according to what part
of your body, your foam rolling. It's time to take a look at the exercises and the foam
roller is more suited to the larger fleshier muscles. That's what we're going to be focusing
on today. Mainly on the legs and the hip area. Let's go going.
Let's start with a big muscle, your glutes and spending time working on this area. It's
probably more effective than trying to actually release your ITB, which will often feel tight,
but it's the muscles that run into that fascia where you can have more of an effect on. There
are three layers of your glutes. You're going to need to really make sure that you work
in every single area. It will be a matter of rotating your body on top of the roller.
You want to start by basically sitting on the foam roller with one of your buttocks,
from there, you're going to roll over and back on that area and then rotate so that
you're right around on the side as well, because your glutes do cover the whole of your bottom
area. If you want to then intensify that a little
bit further, you can actually add in a stretch onto the glute that you're rolling. So you
can place the other ankle across your knee, so you're forming a triangle with that knee
and then you'll be able to feel a stretch in your gluten and you can get it even deeper
when you're rolling. Once you've fully rolled your glutes, if you then want to have a little
roll in your ITB, I personally am a massive fan because whether it's doing anything to
my fascia, I don't know. It just feels like a really nice release.
Now your hamstrings. This group of muscles span the whole back of your leg. They're set
as far down as your knee and up into the top of your leg and your hip, basically underneath
your glute. It's a pretty long muscle, but you want to focus on the middle two thirds.
The muscle belly, the bit that's really fleshy, and you need to be careful as you get close
to the tendons near the knee, because that could be uncomfortable. You really want to
focus on this main part here. You're going to start by simply lying one leg over the
foam roller. You can leave it if you want to start with both legs together, it will
be less pressure but then when you want to really focus on one, you want to make sure
you do the outside of your hamstring, the middle strip, and then the inner strip. That
will require a little bit of rotation over the foam roller and you want to take the support
of your body weight in your hands and in the leg that's not being rolled. Then you can
apply the correct amount of pressure on that bit of muscle.
Your quads make up the largest muscle bulk of your legs, so they're going to need the
most work most probably. It will be quite tender. I warn you now, but as it is such
a large muscle, you want to make sure you roll the full length of it, concentrating
on the belly, but again, a little bit like the hamstrings, but even more so, you're going
to make sure you need to do it in sections. I'd recommend almost splitting it into thirds.
You do the outer third, the middle third and the inner third of your quads. Again, some
of the hamstrings you're going to need to actually take your body weight in your hands.
you going to be lying over the top of the foam roller with it resting underneath one
quad and you'll use that other leg and your arms to take the weight off because full body
weight can be really quite sore on your quads. Take your time to work the full length of
your muscle with focusing any extra time on areas that feel tight or sore. Onto your calves
and your lower leg is a bit easier to work on. Obviously, it's a much smaller area, and
I find my calves get really tight, so I love this one. I start off by actually doing both
calves together, especially if you've got a wide enough foam roller, because then you
can ease in and just warm them up and find out which areas then want to have a little
bit more focus. All of the muscles we've talked about so far, then take your focus onto that
single leg. You will find by just rotating your legs slightly, you'll just be able to
work out which parts wants to be worked. Again, we're at the full length of the muscle, but
be careful as you get close to ankle because you'll be coming onto your achilles tendon
and you need to make sure you don't put too much pressure on that part of the calf.
Once you've fully work the back of your calf, you can actually flip over and focus on the
fleshy part of the front of your shin. Obviously avoiding the shinbone on the inside, but the
outside part is your tibialis anterior muscle, and that's fairly fleshy and can also get
quite tight and sore, especially if you're doing a lot of running on a hard surface.
I find it can be a really nice release to work on that too. We've covered the large
fleshy muscles in the legs. Let's move up to the torso. Now, I'm going to focus on the
lat. If you have been doing a lot of swimming, or maybe a lot of dry land gym work, and you
could find you're getting really tight around the lat area.
This is quite a unique exercise and some people really like it, some don't, so maybe have
a bit of an experiment with it, but you simply need to lie with a foam roller just beneath
your armpit, lying over it on your side. Then from there, you're going to roll your full
body up over the foam roller all the way down to the bottom of your ribs and back again.
It might feel a little bit too sensitive on your ribs, but do play around with the amount
of rotation so that you can get onto the more meaty fleshy part of your lat. Slightly further
round to the back, but have an experiment. Let me know how you get on with that one.
I always like to treat myself at the end of a foam rolling routine with a nice roller
over my middle back. My thoracic spine, this sort of part where you spend a lot of your
day inflection. Whether you're at the desk or you're spending
time on the bike, most of our posture tends to be in this direction. Any chance to get
to open it up has got to be a good thing. When you roll over your spine, just make sure
you stop before you get to your neck and your lower back, but you might feel a little bit
of popping or crunching noise. That's perfectly fine. It's just a nitrogen bubbles being released.
I find it a little bit satisfying. Anyway, if you don't mind, excuse me a moment. I can't
resist it. Before I get too carried away, I almost forgot
before you go. Remember the foam roller might be a little uncomfortable to start with, but
your body will thank you for it later. I definitely have a love, hate relationship and put off
my phone, rolling sessions, but right now I'm feeling really good. If you've been sat
on the sofa watching this, I urge you to get up and have a little bit of a movement and
a bit of a stretch and experiment with the foam roller. Let me know how you get on. Hopefully,
you've enjoyed this and you enjoy the feeling afterwards give us a like, if you haven't
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