Foam Rollers are now available at milk + honey in two sizes for $14 and $22.
Wouldn’t it be nice to end every active week with an intense deep-tissue massage to help ease your muscles? But since we can’t always spring for a trip to the spa, here’s what we can do — use a foam roller! You may have seen people in the gym foam rolling and think it’s just for serious athletes or gym rats, but that’s not the case. There are many reasons why massaging out the tight knots in muscles is an important part of your workout routine, even if you already stretch regularly. Why..? The foam roller not only stretches muscles and tendons but it also breaks down soft tissue adhesions and scar tissue. By using your own body weight and a cylindrical foam roller you can perform a self-massage or myofascial release, break up trigger points, and soothe tight fascia while increasing blood flow and circulation to the soft tissues. No matter how much you stretch, the build up of fascia that creates muscle knots that won’t go away, which can lead to many different problems. The more regularly you use a foam roll on your tight muscles, the less painful it’ll be.
Benefits of foam rolling:
– Helps prevent common injuries. One of the most important reasons for a regular foam-rolling routine is to prevent those often too common exercise-related injuries. Many runners, for example, become painfully well acquainted with their IT band if they don’t take care to massage the band of tissue. IT band syndrome and other similar flare-ups can be caused by too-tight muscles. Foam rolling every day ensures you are massaging away fascia buildup in your muscles, in order to help prevent those areas from becoming injury trigger points.
– Helps you de-stress. Had a hard day? Foam roll your worries away. Digging for those knots “releases tension that is built up in the connective tissue to keep you less stressed,” says Tim. He recommends a simple all-over body routine in order to combat the “desk posture blues” that happen from sitting too long in the office.
-Keeps you flexible. Building up your flexibility is key for any fitness routine, Tim says, which means you constantly should be stretching and doing exercises that’ll help you gain flexibility. Stretches that lengthen your hip flexors, for example, can help combat tightness from sitting as well as lower back pain.
