Foam Roller and Chinese Massage Therapy

Last night I was talking about flexibility (and improving it) with one of the PTs in my gym they mentioned the foam roller. In all honesty I never really knew what they were for and always disregarded them as faddish, in line with the ab-cruncher, exercise blades, recumbent bikes (unless your over 150 years old) and my personal favourite the Ab Lounger 3000. (see pic)

So, I tried the foam roller for myself and was horrified (in a good way) at the results. I have never had a massage but I can imagine that it feels somewhat similar to using a Foam Roller, painful but oddly pleasant feeling.

FAIL!

Anyway, the idea of the Foam Roller is basically a self massaging tool that penetrates very deeply into the muscle tissue and stimulates muscle relaxation.

This is something known as Self-myofasicial release. The very basic idea is that when using the foam roller, we can stimulate the Golgi Tendon Organ that is found at the join between tendon and muscle. Once the GTO is stimulated it relaxes the muscle to gain a greater range of motion.

If you’re anything like me and you only have a certain amount of free space in your brain to retain all of life’s information, then I will sum it up.

1) The foam roller does not increase flexibility (to any great extent) per se.
2) The foam roller increases the productivity of a more traditional stretching routine.
3) The foam rollers is similar to having a deep muscle massage (except cheaper) and will slowly help to lessen muscular scare tissue and adhesion.
4) The foam roller will not wank you off for an added ‘tip’.

So, I am going to start incorporating the Foam Roller into my daily routine and hopefully be able to increase my flexibility to the point were I can do a sitting straddle handstand.