Favorite Foam Rolling Tips: a Full Body Roller Routine, How to Help Your IT Band, and What Rollers to Use
Pre-pandemic, I very regularly incorporated foam rolling into the last 20 minutes or so of my 75 min. Monday night “Yoga Flexible Strength” class, held though U. of Virginia IM-Rec. A foam roller might not be something that you immediately consider a yoga prop, but it actually blends quite well into a cooldown portion of class, especially alongside longer yin yoga holds. I always enjoyed this part of class, because it allowed me the opportunity to share my favorite foam rolling tips and tricks with my students, and quite frequently, a new student might be introduced to foam rolling who had never done so at all ever before!
Foam rolling can be very beneficial for runners, athletes, and everybody. It can also be easy to forget about until you wake up one day as tight as can be and then remember you have just forgotten to foam roll for several weeks in a row. (This was actually me a couple months into the pandemic! Whoopsie!) This is one of the main other reasons I liked incorporating rolling into class: my yoga students are busy, hard-working academics, faculty, and staff. My yoga class on Monday night might be the only blessed time out they get from the rest of their hectic lives to actually foam roll! (Honestly, sometimes even in teaching these foam rolling moments, I was thankful for the foam rolling time out! When you come home at the end of the day or end of the workout and you are a little cracked with fatigue, rolling out my quads or IT band or whatever it may be is usually not the first thing I want to do; I am sure I am not the only one who feels this way, and whether you are teaching others, or whether someone is guiding you, it is nice to have a built-in structure to ensure you get that essential, helpful rolling in!)
This blog post includes my 3 favorite foam rolling tips, within which are actually additional tips. Read on for: 1.) how to foam roll all of your legs, 2.) how to use the best technique to get your IT band area more thoroughly, and 3.) how to incorporate different rollers into your repertoire.
Big Tip #1: Remember you can foam roll most of your legs, not just your IT band area!
I usually do, in order:
1. quads
Point your toes different directions to get different angles here, try propping yourself up on forearms rather than arms.
2. shins
This one may feel a little like a core workout, but it really does help to get those little oft-neglected muscles in the fronts of your shins.
3. glutes
Here, do not just sit with your bum flat on the roller with legs extended; instead, try crossing one ankle over the opposite knee, and then whatever leg is on top, sit more on that side of your bum, and THEN roll! Yes, this can be a rather eye-opening one!
4. hamstrings
Point toes different directions to get different angles.
5. calves
Again, point toes different directions to get different angles, and THEN roll out a second way: start with the roller positioned higher on your calves, and then fully lay down. Now, windshield wiper calves side to side, and then after you are done at that position, use one leg (as minimal movement as possible, just keep laying down) to scoot the roller a little lower on the calves, windshield wiper again, and repeat for the length of your calves. In my experience, this double whammy technique is great for getting out pesky calf knots!
6. IT band (just...saving the best for last, ha!)
Everything you ever wanted to know about that below!
Big Tip #2: When foam rolling your IT band, the following techniques help a ton!
There is nothing (well, almost) that sends a surge of panic into my heart more than seeing someone just whip that foam roller frantically back and forth over their poor little IT band like they are whipping demons out of that thing! Truly, technique here can help make the difference—especially if your IT band is already “talking to you” as they say—between a calm and a frenetic IT band the next day. Also, FYI: in my experience, if your IT band is quite tight, it is often very normal for it to be a little sensitive if you have hit it fairly hard with foam rolling and stretching. So, don’t panic if it feels twinge-y in there, but don’t steamroll the poor little guy to his demise either.
Here is how I foam roll my IT band:
1.) Begin with a few rolls which are LESS intense in pressure before you really dig in there! I usually go back and forth LIGHTLY maybe 5-6 times to just get the whole area a little looser and assess what is happening in there any given day.
2.) This tip is key (in my experience anyhow!) and nobody else ever says this!! Concentrate on the "hip to knee" direction when applying more pressure; this is less likely to irritate your knee and is more likely to keep a flared up IT band on the calmer side. Then in the “knee to hip” direction of rolling, just go very lightly to get the roller back to the “starting” position near your hip. So, once again: REALLY roll when you are going hip to knee, but go LIGHTLY from knee back up to the hip.
3.) Adjust the pressure as needed by changing what you do with your top leg: stacking your top leg means more pressure, and planting your top foot either in front or in back of the leg being rolled means less pressure. In general, I like to start with less pressure and end with more; similarly to tip #1 in this list, you want to see how your leg does with a little load before you really dig in there.
4.) Once you do find tight places and are warmed up with lighter rolls as stated above, go ahead and inch that roller over the really tight areas. Once I am generally rolled out, I inch the roller from hip to knee VERY slowly, really really taking my time if I find a tight knot-light spot. After I go after those knotty spots, I then conclude that side with a few general sweeps up and down the leg.
5. Don’t overdo the time, and keep it even! This whole process above really only takes a minute or two per leg! You don’t need to roll for a super long time, and of course be sure to do both legs.
Big Tip #3: Explore other rollers besides the typically shaped cylindrical ones to use regularly.
Other rollers besides your standard foam roller can be an extremely useful addition to your recovery and injury prevention repertoire. Here are a few that I use on a regular basis.
1.) I love my R8 Roll Recovery which I use daily after showering when my legs are still warm. While this is the roller most similar to the typical foam roller listed here, I find the R8 generally much easier to use regularly since you can use it while standing up or even in the car (as a passenger!).
2.) My Theraflow foot roller (which is very inexpensive on amazon) was extremely helpful in getting over a weird foot issue I had for a few years!
3.) I am now uncertain how I ever lived or functioned without my set of 3 Chirp Wheels. The latter are made specifically for foam rolling the back, and wow, I am actually stunned and beyond impressed at what they have done for the previously INTRACTABLE tight areas of my back. I have all sort of crazy gadgets in my repertoire, including the Theragun which I love, but it is quite hard to use on your back by yourself. The Chirp Wheels I use daily while I watch TV at night, and they have (*knocks on wood*) eliminated the awful painful tight spot in my left upper back that actually would bother me while swimming freestyle sometimes! (If you have a swimmer in your life, buy them the Chirp Wheels! I am not sponsored by them, nor is this post sponsored by them — I honestly just am amazed by and love those things! They have done wonders for my back!!) The first time I used the littlest wheel, my back was making little popping noises like knots were just getting knocked out of there and it felt afterwards like I had had a deep tissue massage. My back tends to be very sensitive and ticklish (it is actually no fun in that regard, ha!) so those wheels are a true life-saver! In fact, my massage therapist was so impressed by the change in my back that she ordered herself the Chirp Wheels after seeing the improvement I had made!
So, while you use your standard tried-and-tested foam roller, remember there are some really amazing other rollers out there that can be even more effective for specific areas of the body, whether feet or your back!
Stay tuned for some yoga classes incorporating foam rolling coming out soon on the Runners Love Yoga app, where you can already find 150+ yoga classes of a variety of lengths, intensities, and focuses, and which is available both for iOS and android!