Roxburgh - Taller, slimmer, younger: 21 days to foam roller physique

When the body gets working appropriately,

the force of gravity can flow through. Then,

spontaneously, the body heals itself.

IDA P. ROLF, PHD

W hen I met my client and now dear friend Kristen in 2009, she was working out really hard with a trainer three to five times a week. Her body was thick, bulky, tired, heavy, sore, and constantly riddled with pain. I told her about the 10-minute-per-day foam rolling program I had designed and how it had completely transformed my body. I told her I could do the same thing for her, but that I needed her to trust in me, even though a few of the things I would ask her to do might feel scary. Kristens initial response was skeptical. Oh, youre just naturally skinny. I will never have that body, she scoffed. I responded by showing Kristen pictures of my larger self. She was blown away by the difference and agreed to give my program a shot. Sure enough, after a few weeks on the program, Kristen lost three inches in her hips, simply from releasing the toxins that were stored in her fascia and reducing the bulkiness in her dense muscles. She went from a size 30 jeans to a size 26 without starving herself. And the pain? Totally gone.

I understand all of the frustration and fear Kristen felt about getting in shape because Ive been there. Although Ive worked with hundreds of clients, I am first and foremost my own guinea pig. Ive been a swimmer since the age of four. As a collegiate athlete and water polo player, I pushed myself constantly, yet still wasnt satisfied with what I saw in the mirror. I read all of the fitness magazines and books, and they all recited the same mantra over and over again: Run more! Do more cardio! Eat like a bird! So I did. The end result was that I had great muscle tone, but was also hungry, thick, very stiff and tense, and generally far from feeling like my best self. It wasnt until I ditched the cardio and intense training and turned to relieving, aligning, stretching, and toning my body with the foam roller that things began to change in a big way. Suddenly, I was taller, slimmer, and looked and felt younger. My pain diminished and I felt so much calmer. My body became more streamlined and lithe. The muscles I had overworked relaxed, and my intrinsic (or ballerina) muscles started revealing themselves. Best of all, I felt better. Its safe to say that I look way better at thirty-seven than I ever did in my twenties. And, might I add, this program allowed me to maintain all of this post-pregnancy.

Kristen and I are not alone in our results. Over the course of the past fifteen years, I have applied this same program to everyone from top pro athletes to celebrities to everyday people of all shapes and sizes. Across the board, everyone who has completed my foam rolling program has undergone a complete transformation not only physically but also mentally and emotionally. Even more than seeing clients who transform their physique, I love to watch clients use this program as a means of combating and resolving chronic pain. Its like giving someone the gift of freedom.

I know it sounds like hocus-pocus that ten minutes per day of foam rolling can lead to such transformative results, but theres actually a proven science to the program Ive designed. The foam roller works in a way that nothing else on the market right now does because it targets a newly discovered organ: fascia, or connective tissue. Were ultimately working with the fascia on the foam roller, and thats why this technique is so innovative. Well delve into what fascia is and why it matters in the next chapter, but for now, suffice it to say that the science and medical communities really only came to discover fascia and its role in our physiology in the past decade2006, to be exact. Working with fascia is still a revolutionary, cutting-edge approach to fitness, as it essentially offers a means to simply and effectively reshape the body.

I first discovered the roller more than fifteen years ago when I was working as a personal trainer at a health club in Manhattan Beach, California. As many trainers and physical therapists do, I learned how to use the roller for self-massage. I immediately loved this technique and used it with my clients from day one to warm them up before their workout program. Fast-forward to my first Pilates workshop a few years later, and I was reintroduced to the roller as a tool for mimicking many of the elongating and core-strengthening moves traditionally performed on expensive Pilates equipment. This was a breakthrough moment for me because it allowed me to empower my clients, whenever and wherever they were, with an easy way of consistently performing the Pilates moves. I couldnt help but notice that once my Pilates clients began incorporating the roller into their routine, their bodies transformed more rapidly. A few years later, I went to school for Structural Integration and learned so much more about the body, fascia, and the anatomy of movement. This knowledge allowed me to take rolling to an entirely new level, and formed the basis of the program youre about to embark on over the course of the next twenty-one days.