How would you like the ability to add an exercise routine to your daily fitness plan that offers a wide range of new and impressive benefits? You can improve your posture, circulation, flexibility, and range of motion. You’ll relieve muscular imbalances and tightness, eliminate lactic acid, and prevent injuries. With this new exercise tool, you can also improve balance, mobility, and overall performance.

Does that sound intriguing? Maybe too good to be true? It’s real, and it’s not a difficult exercise technique. If you are interested in learning how to make all these improvements and enjoy these numerous benefits, then read on!

What Are Foam Rollers

If you’re seeking an exercise routine to help with your personal journey into self-healing and a healthy lifestyle, then look no further than foam rollers. This self-myofascial release technique can offer a large variety of benefits, including the effective relief of tension, tightness, and pain in your back. 

Foam rollers can be used to loosen muscles after strenuous exercise, to relieve aches and pains after waking up in the morning, and to ease away the stress after a bad day at work. Your chiropractor can help you find the routine that works best for different body parts, helping you focus on different areas for a myriad of benefits.

What exactly is a foam roller? It’s a lightweight foam cylinder that can be used at the chiropractor’s office or at home to administer a deep tissue massage. Foam rollers can improve overall comfort by working out muscle knots and relieving inflammation. 

Foam rollers come in a variety of sizes and firmness to help create different results when used, including:

• Soft, low-density rollers are best for those who are new to rolling, bruise easily, or are sensitive to high-pressure massages.
• Firm, high-density foam rollers are for more experienced users, because they place more pressure on your muscles.
• Textured rollers may have ridges, grids, or knobs on them to deeply target muscles.
• Travel foam rollers are not only best for taking with you to the office or gym, but also are great for muscles on your arms and calves due to their small size.
• Vibrating foam rollers come with various settings to allow you to deeply loosen muscles and release knots while enhancing flexibility and circulation.
• Heat and cold foam rollers can be heated or cooled to help with muscle relaxation and to relieve discomfort.
• Foam roller balls are perfect for specific pain points.
• Foam rolling sticks are also great for specific areas of concern.

Foam rollers use your own body weight to exert pressure on your muscles. They release tension and the gentle, repetitive movements can relieve knotted connective tissue for better alignment. Your chiropractor may recommend the use of foam rollers both in the chiropractic office and at home and can teach proper usage for the greatest results.

What Are the Benefits of Foam Rollers?

As previously mentioned, proper use of foam rollers provides many benefits. Whether used in the morning after a full night’s sleep to relieve minor aches, before or after a workout to loosen muscles, or after a tough day at work to relieve stress, foam rollers can provide the following benefits.

Ease Muscle Pain

Foam rollers can ease sore muscles and reduce inflammation, providing much-needed relief. A small study found that physically active individuals who foam rolled following their workout experienced a reduction in delayed-onset muscle soreness. The participants of the study also performed physical exercises better following foam rolling as compared with those who didn’t foam roll.

Increase Range of Motion

There is some evidence that foam rolling can help increase one’s range of motion, improving flexibility and overall performance. It’s best to combine static stretching with foam rolling to experience the best improvement on range of motion. Use the foam roller both before and after your workout for best stretching results. 

Reduce Injury and Improve Recovery Time

One of the benefits of foam rollers is that it can be used to prevent sports-related muscle injuries by relaxing exhausted muscles. 

As you roll, you put pressure on your muscles and release tight spots, relieving pain. Rolling is particularly effective for runners, who experience shin splints and other areas of tight fascia. Find your target areas and work with your chiropractor to roll out the pain and improve any injured muscles. 

Improve Flexibility

Foam rolling therapy can make you more flexible without impairing your current level of strength or athletic performance. This technique works in the same way that stretching does, by loosening your muscles, creating less friction, and developing smoother movements. Properly using a roller prior to your workout can give you a broader range of motion, leading to a more effective and more powerful workout.

See Faster Results

Using a foam roller decreases your chance of injury, increases your range of motion, decreases your recovery period, and creates muscles that simply glide during workouts. All of this together results in an amazing ability to exercise more often with quicker results. Workouts take less effort after using a foam roller, so you can ease into your fitness routine regularly and look forward to seeing those fast results. 

Utilize Self-Massage

Foam rollers are like having an extra set of hands that can reach in places you can’t. We’re often told of the benefits of massage therapy, and the health benefits are obvious. But we may not have the time or money to book regular massages. Foam rollers are the tool that step in and solve the problem. Using the right exercises, you can relieve tension in your tight muscles between visits to your massage therapist.

Improve Posture

Oftentimes, you may find yourself slouching without even realizing you’re doing it, particularly if you work in the office at a desk or spend long periods of time behind the steering wheel. Foam rollers not only loosen tight muscles that are a result of long periods of immobility, they also can be used on the spine to straighten out rounded shoulders and improve posture. 

Do Foam Rollers Actually Work?

Foam rollers can offer you many benefits such as those listed above, but only if they are used properly. Visit your chiropractor and ask for help in using a foam roller to relieve tension in large muscle groups and the upper spine. If you are new to foam roller use, see your chiropractor before beginning therapy to ensure that you don’t cause harm rather than heal your body. 

Your chiropractor can give you detailed instructions on using the foam roller properly to ensure that you benefit from its use. To learn more about foam rollers and the proper exercises for dealing with the pain, schedule a chiropractic appointment online or call us today.

This article is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for in-person advice or care from a medical professional.