Woodworth - Foam Roller Exercises

CONTENTS

Introduction

Imagine your sense of wellness as a bucket, and optimal mobility as a full vessel, the way youre designed to work. However, if youre like most people, your movement often feels dysfunctional and strained.

Through daily lifestyle habits, you subject yourself to extremes that imbalance and weaken the muscular system holes in the bucket, if you will. If you have poor balance, pain, limited mobility, and tightness, youll benefit from a foam roller.

For everyone from the active and agile to the sedentary and tense, rollers and other exercise tools can counteract the negative effect of an eight-hour day sitting down, a double shift standing on your feet, or 10 miles logged as you train. Using a foam roller increases flexibility, promotes healing after injury, improves the alignment of your spine, and heightens your body awareness.

This book has 60 step-by-step exercises and 26 programmes showing you how to use rolling tools to treat the side effects of your occupational or recreational activities.

Dont allow your lifestyle to sabotage your muscles use this book to plug the holes in your bucket as you restore your body to its healthiest, happiest, most supple state.

Why Use a Roller?

The foam roller is a multi-purpose tool that can benefit just about anyone. Rollers are effective both as deep-tissue massagers and as props to build strength and bring your body into alignment.

Rolling vs. Static Stretching

Both static stretching and foam rolling increase your range of movement. However, holding a static stretch too long and too often can reduce your muscles ability to contract (shorten). On the other hand, foam rolling increases the flexibility of your muscles while maintaining their healthy ability to lengthen (stretch) and contract.

More Reasons to Roll

Its inexpensive
Foam rolling requires little investment in equipment or gym memberships and personal trainers.

You can do it anywhere
Foam rollers are lightweight and easy to store, so use them at home, at the gym, or even outside.

You can go solo
You dont need the assistance of a coach or workout partner just yourself and some open space.

Its not just for athletes
Rolling can benefit people of all abilities and lifestyles, from desk workers to stay-at-home parents.

Its versatile
Although its considered a massage tool, also use it to add a challenging element to your fitness routine.

It helps you de-stress
Rolling away the knots and aches helps you relax at the end of a hard day, just like a deep tissue massage.

Using a Roller for Massage

Habits and lifestyle shape your muscle use and movement, often resulting in pain and dysfunction. Using a roller and other massage tools releases tension in your bodys soft tissue and restores proper movement.

What Are Knots?

Knots (also called trigger points) are small, painful spots that form in your muscle fibres. They occur when the portion of the muscle fibre that contracts called the sarcomere becomes overworked and locked in a shortened state that restricts blood flow. Hundreds of contractions in the same spot of a muscle form a knot. Directly massaging a knot with a smaller rolling tool (such as a lacrosse or tennis ball) unlocks the sarcomeres to restore blood flow and reduce the pain.

Why Your Body Needs Massage

Your occupation, fitness level, and daily habits affect your bodys skeletal and neuromuscular system. These structures assimilate to your posture, so whether standing all day or sitting, your bones and soft tissues fix themselves in position. This causes muscle groups to pull on each other, with too much stress on some and not enough on others. The imbalanced system reduces your flexibility and movement quality.

Myofascia and Movement

These muscle imbalances affect your fascia, the flexible network of soft tissue that contains and connects every structure in your body. Muscles are specifically bound by myofascia . When myofascia is static, it hardens, but with mechanical stress, it is naturally more fluid. Healthy myofascia allows your muscles to slide flexibly and efficiently in your body while staying in place.

However, your myofascia thickens under stress so it can perpetuate your posture and muscle imbalances. For example, a pectoral muscle that never reaches full length develops myofascial adhesions to brace the shortened state. This causes the chest muscles to feel taut and inflexible. Hardened myofascia constricts your muscle fibres and leads to poor circulation of blood and oxygen. Restricted muscles limit your range of movement and make your body tense.

Restoration by Rolling

Massaging your muscles with a foam roller and other tools softens your myofascia so that the structures within contracted muscle fibres can receive oxygenated blood. This technique is called self-myofascial release (SMR). Massaging the soft tissue breaks up adhesions and returns it to a flexible state. When you practise SMR regularly, it can restore smoothness to your fascia, improve circulation, decrease pain, and increase your overall range of movement.

how rolling works

Just position the roller under your muscle, apply pressure with your body, and roll slowly. Tools like a massage stick or sports ball target smaller areas. The rolling tools impose mechanical stress on the myofascia, which allows the muscle fibres to properly expand and restore circulation. Self-myofascial release leaves your muscles healthier and more flexible.

more Foam roller benefits

A foam roller can also act as a prop for strength training exercises. Exercising with a roller in this way makes your movement more efficient and helps to improve your posture and balance.

Build Core Strength

The foam roller introduces instability to your exercises, which will intensify the engagement of your core muscles. Working out on a stable surface can eventually become too easy; by adding a foam roller, the instability requires you to engage your joints and deeper-lying muscles to help you maintain your balance. After mastering certain exercises on a stable surface, add a roller so that holding the position is more challenging. Keep your lower back static and maintain a neutral spine so that your exercises are safe and effective.