The body needs foam rolling, just as much as you need to workout. As much as you are actively living your life, is as much as you should maintaining your muscles to do so.

As always from me, Easy button logic; Rolling releases tension in the body that causes your muscles to get unaligned, stay out of light, and causes pain and even injury because of this. Furthermore, it increases blood flow, via creating more oxygen to that locked up area (backs, legs and calfs for example) which prohibits movement and flexibility. Foam rolling does not make your more flexible, that is what stretching is for. What foam rolling does is deal with tension, which cannot be stretched out and must be ‘pressed’ out so to speak. Painful? Yes. Effective? Hell yes!

Where did this come from?

Mostly this has been associated with running and the Iliotibial Band (IT Band) which runs along the outside of the quad. The IT band is a band of fascia that inserts in the outside of the hips, runs down the leg and inserts into the outer part of the knee. This IT Band is tight on everyone person. However, when you are active it gets tighter and causes either knee or hip pain, most commonly the knee. Tension knots form along the band cause itself to become tighter, pulling on the knee cap. The knee is being pulled out so the LCL or inner knee starts to cause mysterious pain. Foam rolling takes care of this. However a doctor would love to cut you open instead. I have have saved many knee surgeries with teaching my clients how to roll. I require all my clients to have foam rollers. With all that said, cardio being the main reason anyone can generate a tight IT Band, weight light especially squats can cause this.

So, you may ask what should I foam roll? Everything! From the base of you neck to the Achilles tendon and everything in between. Never rolling over a joint however. More specifically, Cervical spine (upper back), Thoracic or T-Spine (mid back), Lats (between armpit area and rib cage), Lumbar spine (low back), glutes, hips, groin, inner thighs (adductors), TFL (out hip muscles), hamstrings (back of legs), quadriceps (thigh), Iliotibial band ( IT band ) calves, and solius (second/outer calf muscle along side of shin) to name the most important areas to roll. Pectorals, are also a major muscle group I have my male clients roll.

I am creating a series of videos of detailed proper foam rolling technique, which I will post in more about. Foam rolling is a heavy subject so rest assured I will be talking more about it.