Why you shouldn’t be foam rolling! Part 2

Why You Shouldn’t Be Foam Rolling – Part 2! 

Hi guys! As promised, part 2 of why you shouldn’t be foam rolling.

Last time we started to touch on the importance of thinking about bone positions when changing the quality of muscle tone. Muscles have a lot more play in them than bones, meaning you can ask a muscle to lengthen or contract and not necessarily change what the bones are up to.

If this is the case, when you get up from foam rolling only the muscles will have changed not the bones. This means you will be walking back in the same old muscle imbalances as before you started your rolling session. Not the desired outcome you were after.

Move Those Bones – Let’s start looking at your bony setup

I’d love you to take a moment and stand in front of a full length mirror and look at yourself. That’s right, just look at yourself. Look past the messy hair and the size you think you are and what you want to be, I’m not interested in that today. That’s a whole other blog!

Get spotting what your bones are doing comparing from the front to back and side to side.

Spotting problem areas

Do you get shoulder or neck pain? Do you get lower back pain on one side? Looking in the mirror is one shoulder higher than the other?

Slide your hands down either side of your ribs until you reach the last rib on both sides. Are your ribs lower on one side or the other? Is one shoulder closer to your ear than the other or one shoulder further away from the ear?

In which case we need to move your bones the opposite way to where they are. I really want you to think about the bones doing the movement, this way the muscles will have to change their resting position.

This will create more space to the side where the ribs are lower and more space to the side where the shoulder is closer to the ear, allowing the muscle tone to begin to balance up. The more you think about bones doing the work the muscles have to adapt.

Follow the exercise below 5- 10 times. Do not go into pain but nudge into the edge of your comfort zone. Avoid just going through the motions, nothing changes in this zone.

Now go and reassess back in front of the mirror. What has changed? Has anything changed? Even if it is just a small change. What is the distance like now from your ear to shoulder?

Do the same with checking your rib distance. This exercise will have taken you less than 2 minutes, created a form of change and not caused you pain – what’s not to like about it!

So chuck away your hours of painful foam rolling and get yourself bespoke bone savvy. Remember to assess, move bones, then reassess for ultimate muscle balance and happy body.

Have a play around with other areas of your body: pelvis, legs, arms head and feet. The joints in your body can only move in three ways: forward/ backwards, side to side and rotation.

Start moving them in the opposite way to where they are resting in front of the mirror and see what happens!

Until next time …

Knowledge is absolutely power but only when ACTION is taken

Ellie x