Stretching With a Foam Roller

Hey, I've got a simple session for pain for performance.

We're going to start by sitting on a foam roller.

What I want you to do is take your right hand back.

And then, we're going to cross that right foot over on top of that left thigh.

And all we're going to begin to do is roll that tush across that foam roller.

What we're doing is looking for little tight spots in our butts.

When we find them, we want to try to stay there and allow ourselves to roll through that and release that tension.

That's one of the things we're trying to do with this foam rolling activity is just allowing some of the tension to release in some of the major muscles in our joints.

Beautiful.

We'll just do a couple more of these rolling back and forth.

And then, we're going to switch, you guys.

So let's come off of here.

And we're to get the other side.

All we do is take, in this case, our left arm back.

We switch it over.

Take that left foot up to the left leg.

And we do the same thing.

Now we're targeting, in this case, that right glute.

Beautiful.

Just back and forth we're going.

Nice and easy as we roll.

We're looking for the tight spots allowing ourselves to, again, just soften into this.

And again, some of these little rolling techniques that we're going to give you are going to be a little more intense than others.

This one can be that way.

There's no doubt about it.

But just, again, look for those little spots.

Nice, you guys.

Last few.

Beautiful.

The next area we're going to target is your hamstrings.

So we sit off of the foam roller.

And we just allow ourselves to put the back of our legs on the roller itself.

And we're going to press ourselves up with our hands.

And again, we're just targeting now the hamstring.

Rolling back and forth across it.

Beautiful.

And again, what we want to do is start just above the back of the knee.

And then, just going right up just below the glute itself, right below your butt.

And just again, look for any tight spots as you roll out the back of your leg.

Great.

How does that feel, you guys?

How does that feel at home?

If this is new to you, probably something totally different.

It takes some time to get used to, comfortable with.

But you'll get it in no time.

Very nice, you guys.

All right, we're going to change and we're going to get the other side of your legs now.

So we're going to get what we call your quadriceps, the front.

So in this case, again, we're going to face the foam roller.

We're going to lay down, elbows on the ground underneath our shoulders.

Placing it on the front of our thigh.

And here, we just pull ourselves back and forth.

Targeting, in this case, just above the knee to just below the hip.

And again, looking for those tight spots.

And just stay there rolling gently back and forth softening up that area of the body.

Recovery, recovery, recovery, beautiful.

Just going across the front of that thigh.

You're doing great, you guys.

Keep it up at home.

You're doing an amazing job.

Excellent.

Last ones.

All right, good job.

Now we're going to go into an area that sometimes can be a little intense.

It's called your IT band.

And the way we're going to start this one is we're going to put the foam roller on the mat.

And we're going to shift here.

We're going to allow ourselves to place, in this case, our right thigh up on top of it.

We allow ourselves to be on our elbow.

Left leg is in front.

And we just roll back and forth across the outside of that thigh area, the IT band.

And this spot can definitely sometimes feel it.

You might be going, oh my gosh, my golly.

What that's telling you is you need this.

This area, in particular, can help reduce a lot of knee pain if you stay with this one.

Just work through it.

Last couple here.

Beautiful.

Last one.

Excellent.

We're going to switch to the other side.

So we just adjust that foam roller.

Take it over.

Same thing.

We put the outside of that thigh on the foam roller laying down on our left elbow, crossing, in this case, that right foot there.

And we just go there.

Right across.

Again, we're using our arm to support.

If you needed to, you could even come up here.

That'll release a little of the tension so you won't feel as much in this one.

Yeah, because again, as I said, this first time you do this, if you haven't done it before, oh my, oh my, you will feel this son of a gun.

No doubt about it.

Beautiful, you guys.

Back and forth you go.

Last couple of these.

I love it.

And then, we gently release from there.

We're going to get what we call our lats.

So what we do now, in this same side of our body, is we place the roller underneath, in this case, just below the armpit.

We extend our arm out.

The top leg sits back behind me.

And I just roll out just down to just below my ribs.

And I come back up again just below the armpit.

Then just go back and forth.

That lat area of your back.

We're loosening it up.

How are we doing back there, you guys?

Good.

Doing all right back there, AC?

You doing all right there at home?

This stuff actually feels really good.

I hope this becomes a regular part of your routine.

No doubt about it.

Beautiful, you guys.

Now we're going to shift.

We're going to get the other side.

So we're shifting over.

And we're going to roll it.

Same darn dealio on this side, too, you guys.

We lay down.

Extend that arm out.

Put it underneath our lat muscle.

Top leg is working for us.

And we just gently roll back and forth across the entirety of that muscle.

Beautiful, smooth movements, not rushing anything.

Just looking for little tight spots in that back muscle known as the lat.

Great.

Just keep rolling.

Nice work.



You guys doing it?

Looking good, Jeff.

You guys got it.

Awesome, AC.

And you're doing an awesome job at home.

Last couple.

And now, we're just going to get our back.

So what we're going to do is lay flat on that.

We're going to put it underneath our shoulder blades.

We're going to lay back.

And for this one here what I'd like you to do is hands behind our head.

We're going to lift the hips up.

And then we're just gently going to roll back and forth.

Just a couple times on this one.

Beautiful breath.

Let it flow.

Rolling through that mid-back up to just around the shoulder blade area, maybe a little bit higher if it feels OK to do so.

Beautiful.

And then, let's place our hips on the ground, you guys.

The roller is just underneath our shoulder blade.

And last thing we're going to do is just let our head fall back.

And just open up our shoulders, open up that chest.

And we just breathe.

Breathe deep.

And then, slowly we're going to come on up bringing the elbows towards our body.

We're going to put our hand down.

Press ourselves up.

And that's going to complete the pain free performance session.