One way that persons can improve their recovery rate is to indulge in exercises involving a foam roller. A foam roller is basically a long, tubular piece of foam that a person can place underneath their body so that they can engage in various stretches and exercises.
A new report explores the benefits of exercise involving a foam roller as well as how to make the most out of such an exercise. Foam rollers can be used by those injured by overexertion to ease themselves into the next day’s workout. The author of the article explains that taking a day after an intensive workout to engage in some light stretching with a foam roller can help stave off more serious injuries that might crop up in someone who doesn’t take the time to properly recuperate.
Why is a foam roller so helpful? You’re basically getting your muscles back into the zone that you want them to be in. Intense workouts can cause muscle trauma that could take days to heal on its own, but foam rolling stretches allow you to very gently move those muscles back to their proper place. They also get your blood flowing in a healthy manner.
If there’s a part of your body that’s facing pain, you don’t want to focus too much on that one section of your body at the cost of ignoring other sections. A perfect foam rolling stretching routine will get muscles from the bottom of a person’s body on up to the top worked out. When you experience soreness in a given area, it’s perfectly acceptable to spend a little more time on that area, just not to the point where you’re taking away from other parts of your body.
You’re basically going to be laying down and rolling over those areas of the body that give athletes the most grief: the legs, the lower back, the spine, the neck, the abdomen, etc. Position the foam roller beneath the area you want to massage and then roll back and forth. If you’re having trouble balancing or adjusting your form, a physical trainer should be able to help you strike the right poses.
If you’re moving across your entire body during a recovery day, don’t be afraid to take a decent amount of time to finish. A few minutes isn’t enough to get the requisite level of exercise. However, five minutes is all you need if you’re engaging in foam rolling after you’ve just completed a strenuous run. These short bursts of foam rolling interspersed with longer bouts on recovery days can serve to keep your body in the best shape possible.