Dr Saranjeet Singh's video: FOAM ROLLER - Rest Position

The foam roller, like traditional stretching, is a great tool for lengthening and elongating muscles, but its benefits are especially helpful for runners, who often suffer from tight and fatigued muscles. Instead of simply lengthening the muscle, a foam roller massages muscles intensely, much like a massage from a massage therapist, but without the heavy cost. When used often and correctly, the foam roller can help runners avoid many sport-related injuries, explained Dr Saranjeet Singh, a Sports Medicine Specialist at BODYLINE. It's not a replacement for proper stretching, warming up or cooling down, but can be used as a tool to limit soreness and tightness through increased blood flow and flexibility. As I see it, the main benefits of foam rolling are as follows: • Improved blood circulation throughout your skin, fascia, muscles, and even tendons and ligaments where you can access them with a foam roller. • Through improved blood circulation, more efficient exchange of nutrients and waste products at a cellular level, leading to better overall cellular function and inter-cellular communication. • Lengthening of short (tight) muscles, tendons, and ligaments. Some muscles (like hip flexors) and ligaments (iliotibial band) are prone to shortening, and are difficult to effectively stretch and apply therapeutic pressure to using standard massage and trigger point therapy techniques. But with a foam roller, you can apply deep pressure massage to such areas and lengthen shortened tissues, thereby preventing physical imbalances that can predispose you to injury. • Promotion of optimal spinal range of motion. You can accomplish this by slowly rolling your spine against a foam roller and pausing whenever you feel restrictions to allow your joints and surrounding tissues to stretch. Beyond using a foam roller as a therapeutic tool, you can also use it for a variety of exercises. It's especially useful for a number of core-strengthening and stabilizing postures and movements. Bottom line: foam rolling can be a huge part of any effective program of self-applied deep pressure work and stretching. Keep training Dr Saranjeet Singh (Sports Medicine Specialist) drsaranjeet@gmail.com