Do-It-Yourself Massage: The Power of Foam Rollers
For endurance athletes or those who train hard, muscle pain and soreness is to be expected. While high-level college athletes have the benefit of a regular massage, many individuals in motion do not. The good news is that even if you can’t afford to pay for regular manual therapy appointments, you can massage your hard-to-reach muscles with a cheap and convenient foam roller.
Instead of paying for a human being to loosen your muscles, those watching their wallets can invest in these cheap devices for self-massage. (For instance, the model pictured to the right retails for $11.95 at ActiveForever.com.) These simple tools have become much more common lately as more and more people take up endurance sports in a slow economy.
Expert trainers usually agree that weekly massage benefits athletes who are training for big events, like marathons or triathlons. In fact, it can be a necessary step in preventing muscle tightness and injury in hard to reach places like the hip flexors, shoulders, and glutes.
While self-massage used to be rare, there is a growing range of products, including foam rollers, that individuals can use to help stretch their muscles at home. YouTube videos demonstrating various at-home exercises are easily found through a simple Google search. For those that don’t want to invest in a foam roller, many videos also purport the benefits of using common objects like tennis balls to release tight areas.
For all its advantages (the convenience, the lack of expense, the wide applicability), self-massage has its limitations. Foam rolling your muscles may help you avoid more frequent visits to the clinic, but massage from a trained therapist can be much more effective — and relaxing — than a self-administered massage. A therapist also has a comprehensive knowledge of anatomy and can help with injuries, like muscle strains, that may not respond to self-massage.
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