Self Massage with a Foam Roller

Laying down for bed last night I had a hard time getting to sleep because my butt was so sore.  No joke, it just ached and ached.  Working out five days a week is doing great for my back pain, but it is sure making my muscles ache from the strain.  After getting a massage today I felt way better.  I decided that the answer to my aches, therefore, is to get a massage everyday. :)

Now even as a massage therapist who can do trades with other therapists this is just not feasible.  That leaves self massage, but how to massage your own butt?  I normally just use a tennis ball, but this takes a long time to methodically go through all the trigger points in the gluts.  What I need is something I can use to quickly and easily massage large areas like the gluts, hamstrings, and quadriceps. 

While in San Diego I had the opportunity to massage a lot of BUDS trainees (AKA navy seals).  These guys work hard and as a result abuse the heck out of their muscles.  One of my patients alerted me to the functionality of a foam roller and how great it is for self massage.  I never really used it much myself at the time, but was aware of how much easier it made my job if the guys used it on a regular basis.  As sore as my muscles are now I think it's about time I learned how to use mine properly.

I found this really great info-graphic on Pinterest showing how to use the foam roller for massage of a variety of muscles.  So I rolled it out and thought I would share my trials and tribulations.

I just did the massages for my legs and gluts.  I didn't do the one for the hip flexors because I just couldn't see how it would actually massage the hip flexors which are basically hidden beneath the intestines and much too deep to be rolled with the foam roller in my opinion.

The one for the IT band is a doosey.  It hurts, a lot.  My IT band is apparently very, very tight and as such is incredibly sensitive.  Too sensitive for the hardness of my foam roller.  I will have to try it another way in the future.  I did roll up at the top of the hip, however, to get the Tensor Fascia Latae. 

I also did my hamstrings which worked out really well.  I will say though that it takes a lot of core and arm strength to hold yourself up.  I got a pretty good workout.  The gluts were also really sensitive, but doable.  I also improvised and flipped over to roll out my quadriceps  the same way as I did for the hamstrings (just on the front side instead).

All in all it worked out pretty well and I think I will continue to roll out my leg and glut muscles in the future.  Wish me luck.