Are You Making These 3 Foam Rolling Mistakes?
Wow, watched Nightcrawler over the weekend.
Jake Gyllenhal was so creepy!!!
That’s whack he didn’t get an Oscar nomination, but at the same time, I think I can understand why;
Note: If you haven’t seen Nightcrawler, scroll through these next few paragraphs!!!
SPOILER ALERT…THIS IS NOT A DRILL
Complete lack of backstory
The whole time I was on edge waiting to find out what the heck was wrong with this guy… Multiple personalities? Schizophrenia?
And that backstory never came…the movie just ended.
Say whatttttt?? What a tease!!
I can see how it could be creepier to keep people in the dark and make the audience guess why he was the way he was, but I needed SOMETHING!
What were his parents like? Why did he become a thief in desperate need of a job?
Questions, questions…questions that need answering!
I think it left his character, and therefore the movie, with a lack of depth.
Regardless, that shouldn’t take away from Gyllenhal’s performance, I just thought the movie could have been REALLY awesome, and instead it was just awesome.
I think the highlight though was myself, Jess and our friend Maurice trying to get the USB cable to play the movie on the TV (it was a digital download).
We struggled for around 45 minutes, but Maurice and I knew we were close to making it come together.
Jess, meanwhile, had folded approximately 43 minutes prior, but was still giving commentary and questioning our efforts.
Maurice was finally able to magically pull the screen up. Shock and celebration ensued.
But when the movie started playing, it didn’t have any sound.
Nooooo!!!!
I quickly pulled out my phone and googled, “playing sound through TV from computer”
I read the steps and directed Mo to what to do.
Sound started blaring from the TV.
You would have thought we just won the lottery, we were on our feet high-fiving, hugging, and I believe Jess shed tears.
Dumb, I know, but hey, it meant a lot to us, ok????
As I tell Jess, you always have to have faith!! And when you get me and Mo together, faith is on overdrive and everything always works out.
Good times…
I have no idea why, but that event inspired me to write about foam rolling.
Is there anyone who isn’t using a foam roller these days?
If so, you’re missing out!
It may look like a strange, and simple, object on the surface, but if you can call anything a miracle-worker in the fitness industry, this is it…I’ve made myself look a lot smarter than I am by having people use the roller when they complain about little aches and pains…
“Wow, this feels so painful…but so GOOD!”
Like I mentioned, foam rolling has become pretty mainstream now, and therefore, there are a lot of things out there talking about foam rolling…some good…
Annnddd some not so good…
I mean, there’s not a lot of research out there on the roller, so it’s not surprising there is some confusion.
So I wanted to delve into 3 common foam rolling errors that beginning and experienced foam rollers make alike, along with how to solve them;
#1: Poor alignment
I’ve talked on this blog about the cues of “keeping the ribs down” and “squeezing the heck out of your glutes”.
This is important to establish proper anterior core stability, postural alignment, and take stress off the lower-back
It holds particular importance for those who are already in an anterior pelvic tilt.
But it’s often thought of when doing the big-time movements, like squats, overhead presses or a fancy core exercise AND NOT while performing foam rolling.
Here is a visual comparison showing a foam roll for the quads/hip flexors;
In the first photo, I’m just hanging out on my lumbar spine and not doing a great job of maximizing the potential of the roll.
You see, I could be getting some core and glute engagement and really get deep into my legs, but by mindlessly letting my core drop to the floor, I’m leaving a lot on the table and reinforcing poor positions.
Anyone can benefit from a better core and glutes, and it’s kind of impossible to have TOO GOOD of a core and fanny, so it needs to be trained from the moment you step into the gym!
It’s a simple fix, you just need to be mindful of it.
Here is another photo showing a foam roll for the hip.
In the first photo, my ribs are ready to engulf a tribe of small children. In photo 2, I have the ribs under control and maintaining proper alignment.
Alignment is strength and strength is power.
Own your alignment on the roller!
#2: Lack of breathing/too much tension
Outside of providing life, it’s important to breathe while you roll.
But not just breathe…belly breathe.
This supports the first technique correction.
By focusing on breathing through your belly as you roll, you let your body actually release into a parasympathetic state better.
Think of parasympathetic as “relaxation” and sympathetic as “fight or flight”.
And when you foam roll, you want to be relaxed, not tensed up like we were watching Nightcrawler.
You want tension for your strength work, not your rolling.
If you breathe through the chest and hold tension through the shoulders or grind your teeth or whatever it is that you do, your ability to get in touch with the muscles you are rolling will be diminished.
The first thing I will have someone do if they are rolling a muscle that is painful is go into a belly breath.
I then tell them everything is going to be ok. We are going through this together. Their family loves them.
That usually calms them down and allows that muscle to really “receive” the roll and make progress.
See the following photos to determine the difference between a roll that is chill and one that is tension-heavy.
#3: Not Treating it Like an Exercise
I like to think of foam rolling as physical therapy.
It should have some sort of end goal.
In rolling’s case, you don’t want your muscles to hurt when you’re on it.
Tissue that feels pain on the roller is not healthy tissue.
So if you don’t feel anything significant rolling on a particular muscle, great! That means you probably don’t need to be doing it.
Focus on the muscles that elicit an actual reaction, because as soon as it becomes mindless, it becomes a waste of your time.
When you’re in the gym, you need to maximize your minutes and if you spend 5 minutes rolling around on muscles that don’t have much scar tissue build-up, that’s like standing at the water fountain and filling up your bottle past when it’s full…
And then just watching it overflow until the 5 minutes is up.
It’s like, ok, man, you’re good.
More is not better!
If you find you are constantly needing it and nothing ever improves, then you probably need to take a closer look at your strength program. It should ultimately be making you feel BETTER, not worse.
Like with corrective exercise, the idea is that you STOP doing corrective exercise as soon as you have reached your movement standards.
In the case of the FMS, if you have a 3 on a certain pattern, that means you don’t need to warm that pattern up.
It’s already there. Just attack other dysfunctional patterns and do something to get your heart rate up and achieve the basic objective of any warm-up.
Warm up!!
Roll Out!
Foam rolling is glorious, just be mindful of your core positioning, breathing, and how it actually feels to you.
This will make the greatest use of your time, get you set to go into an epic dynamic warm-up, and support your strength programming.
Dominate All Life,
Kasey, CSCS
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