Self Massage and the Foam Roller
April 23, 2007 by Jimson Lee
It was reported that Michael Johnson, 4 time Olympic Gold medalist and World record holder in the 200 meters and 400 meters, had daily massages of 90 minutes!
90 minutes! Nice! As an athlete, my budget was usually 1 or 2 times per week of 60 minutes.
An alternative way to have a daily massage is with the use of a foam roller, or even tennis ball. They are beneficial for enhancing performance, preventing injuries, and speeding up recovery from injuries.
I was introduced to this concept at the Sports Medicine Institute International, or SMI, formerly known as the Stanford Myofacial Institute.
I found they worked really well on my glutes, hamstring, and the IT band (no, not your garage rock band of your computer department, but the Iliotibial band) They come in 2 sizes, 4 inches and 6 inches in diameter. I like the smaller one when traveling for track meets.
There was a rumour for a deeper pressure point massage, athletes used the tennis ball for the glutes, filled the ball with water, and froze it. In essence, they are massaging themselves with a hard frozen ball that ices the area too.
I won’t go in detail on how to use it, as it is well explained in the guide found at:
http://www.smiweb.org/massage/downloads/roller.pdf
Give it a try and send me your feedback.
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[…] wrote about foam rollers from my days at the Stanford Myofacial Institute (now called SMI). You can read the article here, or click here to download the PDF guide. Yes, that is Jason Lunn Michael Stember in the photos […]