In this video, I'm going to show you some of the ways I like to foam roll. Stay tuned. What is up everyone?
In this video, we're going to go through some foam rolling. If you've been foam rolling for a while now, maybe this is just a good refresher for you. If you have no clue what foam rolling is or you're new to it, then this will give you a nice little overview and give you a nice good foundation for the next time or when you start foam rolling.
So this is a foam roller. You've probably seen them in the gym or in the sporting goods store. This one is pretty firm. It's kind of the standard foam roller you see a lot. But they come in...
different sizes and shapes they come longer this one's pretty hard they come in softer foam so this one has a little bit more give to it and then this one has knobs on it yeah this one feels good or hurt so good. But find what works best for you. Everyone's different.
Sometimes I like to use something like this a little bit more firm on parts of the body that can take it like my back and my hamstrings but when I go into the calves and quads I might use one of these guys. Today let's use this one and I'm just going to kind of freestyle it today. I'm going to work through a lot of the muscles maybe not every single one but all the major muscle groups here.
You You can skip through the video if you don't want to see a certain one. It's not going to hurt my feelings. But let's start off with the calves. All right.
Calf muscle right on the back of the lower leg. Working right in this section right now. I'm going to show you just a couple different techniques that I like to use.
One is just rolling right up the muscle. So calf. We'll start right at the bottom of the lower leg. I like to use my hands.
I like to lift myself up and then slowly put pressure into the foam roller and then roll up the muscle. I'll also turn my leg in, roll up and down. I'll also turn my leg out so we get the outside of the leg. That's one very basic way, just rolling out the muscle. There's another one I like to call more of like a cross fiber, going across the muscle.
So you lift up and then just going side to side. You can kind of feel the muscle flip over the foam roller. I like to call this cross fiber, going across the fibers of the muscle.
And then I like to do a pin and stretch or more of an active release version of foam. rolling so same thing you put pressure down into the foam roller point the toe away and then point the foot towards you so we're getting some motion in that muscle hurts so good so there's a couple ways of foam rolling the calf and i don't like to spend too much time maybe like 30 seconds and then i'll go into the next muscle and now let's go up to the hamstring hamstring right on the back of the leg here And same thing, I like to roll up nice and slow and then I like to go all the way right up into where the hamstring meets the butt. So go pretty much right below the butt. That feels good.
Again, I like to go in and out, trying to get just different parts of the hamstring. There's one more thing. If you need more pressure, let's go back to the calf.
Let's rewind a little bit. If you need more pressure down into the calf muscle, let's say just lifting up isn't enough, you can place your other leg right on top and get some action. added pressure in there and that's way more pressure than I had before. So you can use that in your hamstrings as well.
You can kind of go up here and start rolling up and down. So this is another spot I really like to go up and down the muscle all the way again all the way up into the butt and then going a little bit of side to side here. Let's turn it over. Let's get the front part of the shin. We're looking at tibialis anterior.
We're looking at some of the peroneals on the side of the front of the leg. And this is when we have to get a little athletic here. We're going to bring our hands down and then we're just going to put our shin right onto the foam roller. I'm just using one side right now.
and then just rolling up and down here. You might have to angle yourself kind of in funny ways to get into the peroneals which are on the side of the leg and that feels pretty damn good. Pin and stretch where you're pointing the foot back and forth. And that's working these shin muscles right in the front of the leg.
Now let's get into the quads. I have my phone in this pocket so let me move it over. Now for the quads.
Foam roller right below the quad. And again, the quad runs from the knee all the way up to the hip. So we want to run through that whole muscle. We'll go from here, prop yourself down almost like you're in a plank position, and then slowly roll your weight all the way up. All the way up into that hip bone.
Good. Let's run back down. And again, we can start running through the inside part of the quad.
And then also that outside part of the quad. Here, I also like to do a lot of this pin and stretch. Kind of work through different parts of the muscle.
All the way up into that hip. And that is the quad. Now let's go into the IT band. This is kind of a lot of controversy with this one recently. A lot of people don't like to foam roll the IT band, putting compression down into it.
And a lot of the times if you have rolled your IT band before, and your IT band runs from your hip down to the side of the leg. A lot of the time, you're actually just really feeling that outer quad muscle, that vastus lateralis underneath when you're putting pressure down into it. I'm going to show it to you anyways. Maybe in the comments, give me your pros and cons of rolling out the IT band. I'll show it to you anyways.
So from here, we're getting right on that lateral part of the quad here or that leg. I like to use this leg as support, prop down and then you roll up and down. I almost like to use this more for my outer quad and I'll angle myself this way a little bit. That's the outer quad IT band foam roll.
And then while we're here, let's hit that TFL, which is actually the muscle that attaches to the top of the IT band. A lot of times, people like to say, let's roll this out instead of the IT. bands and it's a really small muscle so it's going to be a little bit tougher to get to the foam roll but you'll feel it for sure if you're on it obviously so if you just go all the way to the top of the side of that leg roll maybe a little bit forward it'll feel a nice little tender spot right there it actually feels pretty good and that's the tfl so And from here, just kind of rolling back and forth.
Can't really do too much with this one. Maybe a little bit of cross fiber here. And again, that muscle runs right at the top of the IT band, kind of right on that side part of the hip. Now let's go into the glutes. We can go into our hip external rotators like our piriformis, the deep six.
Then we can also go again right into that all-important glute medius, which is that nice chunk of muscle right on the side of your hip. And for this one, I like to cross the leg over like you're sitting and lounging in a chair. Then from here, just roll back and forth.
You'll definitely feel it can go right down into where your butt bone is, your sits bone, and all the way to the side of the hip. So right now I'm getting a little bit of my glute med on that side of the hip and then once I get a little bit closer to kind of that butt bone and that sacrum we start hitting some of the external rotators. Feels pretty good.
You can also use like a tennis ball if you want to get a little bit more direct. But this video is on foam rolling, so we're going to use a foam roller. All right, hip rotators, some of the glutes here.
Let's go into the inner thigh. This one we have to get back onto our stomach. And then this one looks a little bit awkward, but whatever. Doesn't matter.
Awkward is good. Get down into this position, drive your knee so it's around hip level here, and then you're just going to roll right on the inner thigh and get all the way right up into that groin, okay? Down towards the knee and then roll again right up into that groin.
From here, a killer is that pin and stretch. You're going to pin down, all you're going to do is extend your leg out, flex it. Back in and working on those inner thigh muscles, those adductor muscles. All right.
So that pretty much hits all of our lower body. Now let's go into our upper body. I'm going to focus a little bit more on the back stuff. Doing the pecs, it's just a little bit difficult. It's a little bit awkward.
I think using a tennis ball up against a wall might be a little bit better. I'll show it to you, but I don't do it that much. But let's go into the back first.
Let's go into the full back, the erectors, all the way up and down the back. But there's also the lats back there, the rhomboids, the traps. that we can hit as well. So I like to bend the legs. I like to put my hands either behind my head and bring the elbows close together.
That separates the shoulder blades, kind of pulls the shoulder blades away from the spine. Or I like to hug myself. Accomplishes the same thing. So from here, I'll do crossing the arms over my shoulders just because I think it's a little bit easier view for you guys. I'll roll up and down.
Again, on this one, I like to go a little bit of leaning to the side so we can concentrate on one side at a time. And then we can turn over to the other side. And then from here I like to arch over the foam roller working on that all-important T-spine extension. A lot of us are hunched over all the time at a desk and gravity just kind of pulls us forward.
This is going to help just kind of reverse it a little. bit create some extension open up get back into that position and then i like to tuck my chin keep my ribs down keep the abs a little bit tight and then slowly just get a little bit of extension working up and down the back So that's great for the back. There's also a little QL muscle here.
It's that side bending muscle. A lot of people feel it when they have low back pain. You can get in there just a little bit and that's at the bottom of your back. It's right here and you have to hit it at a slight angle up and down this way a little bit tough to get with a foam roller you can still feel it i like to use a tennis ball sometimes so ql2 now let's go into the lats which is a muscle runs all the way down your back but for most people they'll really feel it here and this is an easy way to get into the lats let's go this way i'll show it to you this way From here just laying on your side, I like to go palm up here and we're going to go right into that armpit down the side of the back, side of the torso.
So rolling up and down. It's one of those spots that you don't realize you're really, you don't realize how tight you are in here. And then again, I like to lean forward just a little bit.
going up and down we even get a little bit of the serratus that boxer's muscles those finger-like muscles in the rib cage all the way up then you can even get into the triceps a little bit here lean back get into that rotator cuff a little bit and also the back side of the lat and again if we go a little bit further here and we're doing the lat roll down we go right up into the tricep and that is the lat going up into the tricep and then the last thing i'll show you is the pec we'll have to get back down on our stomach and then we'll place the foam roller right out to the side and then we can roll right into that foam roller. Getting a little bit awkward, we can still get in there. Actually feels pretty good. So those are some of the ways I like to roll out the body with the foam roller. Let me know if you have any different techniques.
Go down to the comments, let me know. I'm always trying to learn some more. And if you like this video, make sure you like it. Comment below and then also subscribe.
See you guys next time.