Restorative Foam Roller

Yeah. So I recently injured my back for the first time in my life, which was not super fun. And I'm starting my movement practice again, gratefully. And I thought that I would just share with you some movement strategies and some stretching strategies that I'm using to make myself feel better. I hope you enjoy. So we have the foam roller here and we're just gonna lay down on it to start.

So you want to just sit right at the very end of the foam roller in today. I'm just going to use my hands to help myself down onto my back. Skidding the spine aligned. Okay. And then just allowing a moment or two, just allowing my Elvis to bend in my forums to softly rest down.

We're just going to allow a moment or two for the, uh, body just to find heaviness on the roller. I could call it constructive arresting and then inhaling and melting the stress of the body into the foam roller or through the foam roller in a way. And in here? Yeah. Okay.

I have me and taking another inhale this time as the exhale, we're gonna allow the low back to come in or towards the reformer and then we're gonna reach the pelvis back to neutral and in here and drawing the navel in towards the spine. Just allowing that lower back to come into contact with the roller and really back just a couple more [inaudible] and really thinking back. And one more extra this time. Let's try to take the pelvis off the roller a little bit. Coming up into a low bridge and healing, allowing the shoulder blades to just be a soft start laying the spine back down so I don't really lift much off my rib cage. And then I really, really, really try to organize my lower onto the roller because we've brought the roller up to us.

There's not a lot of room articulatory space is what I'm speaking about. So we just do our best, but just know that it won't be as free as I say pelvic curl on the floor. Okay. Is trying to really mobilize and noticing, noticing where the back feels tight, dropping the tail down, feel the back of the head heavy against the rollover. Do a couple more. Flattening the spine, standing on the fee rolling up.

Okay. And India maybe as lower back tries to come down. We feel that we lighten up on the feet. I don't know. That might work and it might work for you, but it might not work for you. It might work for you, but it worked for me, so I go heavy on my feet on the way up. I get a little lighter on them as I come to the top and then I try to get a light or on them and as I come back down, that's just all imagination. Then we're going to stay at the bottom, keeping the back side of the ribs on the roller. Inhaling, draw the skin of your body away from your clothing and pick one leg up.

Okay. In Yak heath, that drawing in feeling as you touch the floor and float the like Baca, keeping everything else. Don't inhale full [inaudible] and in here [inaudible] we can do two more and one way and then bring that leg down. This is the trickiest part for me. Can I put one foot down? Prepare to lift the other one without any shifting. I'm going to have a little bit more practice doing that in just a second.

Inhale, allowing the light to touch and you might notice that one side feels easier in here. Do Memorial, so I'm just working here to find my deep abdominal muscles trying not to tip off center of my sacred Latin more. No, we are going to alternate the legs, but we're going to do it at the bottom. So one it goes down. Here's the transition. Can we stabilize, pick up the other leg without shifting and go down and stabilize. Lifting the other leg of that shifting. I don't know about you, but I find this quite challenging. Maybe that's just me, but I might not look like much, but I'm working pretty hard mentally. Yes, and physically. Okay.

I mean, it's not exhausting physically or anything, but it is, it's quite a challenge to do that shift without losing stabilization or without shifting. And then lifting up one leg. Now do the legs lifting, passing one another, and that's just easy. That just feels easier. Okay. Still trying to find the deep abdominals. Feel the trunk working okay. And one, two, three, three, two, two, one, one placing one foot down, placing the other foot down. Take an India flat to the spine, into the roller. If they upset.

Now I hear. Let's take the arms up in back and then use the arms to help us create more stretch in the spine. As we place the spine down, we'll bring the arms back around, lift one leg, lift the other leg and let the heels reach to the back of the hips. And anyhow, dominoes drawing in both legs or were working away from us. And both legs come in in far as we can.

Haul the wing out through the waste. As you bring the legs to the body and in here and hauling through the waist, keeping the sacred [inaudible] heavy in the opposite direction. And in here and in here, we'll just do two or more through allowing that sacrum to move a little. Just get staying flat, but you feel had just says the legs move through space too, or okay. Last time.

Well reached down to place one foot down. Please see other foot down. Lift the arms up. Now bring the arms over towards the head, towards the roller. Past the roller. Bend the elbows as the elbows bend. Feel that the elbows are trying to lift in your mind's eye slightly higher than the hands or that we just find a little external rotation of the shoulders. Reach the arms up.

I've got the benefit here of it being able to reach below the map, which feels really good. And then we're coming up with the arms. Yeah, bending the elbows, trying to keep the bottom most ribs on the roll or heavy. Just taking our time as we work through this stretch, that stretch, those stretches. There's different ones in there. And we'll do that a few more times. Up in back, breathing into the stretch, opening the chest, [inaudible] reaching out and down, and then around. Let's do two more [inaudible] maybe there is a place or a couple of different places that feel like you need a little bit of extra attention. Me. See you pause there.

[inaudible] we'll just go one more time up in back and then open and bring the arms all the way down. And then we're just gonna roll off onto our back, bringing the roller off to the side and allowing the back just to melt into that sensation of being in a soft flat. I don't know, it feels like being in sand to me, like being in a hole. And then we're gonna use the legs to turn to the side and the arms to help us up. So the next thing that we're going to do is we're going to turn the roller on its side and I'm going to lift my pelvis and put the roller. Just, I'm going to have to move my mic a little bit. We're going to put the roller to right in the soft tissue between the ILIAC crest, the hip crest of the pelvis, and the greater trocanter the bone on the side of the lake.

And we're just gonna do a little rocking and rolling here. And it's not important that the bottom lake stays straight or that the top leg is exactly where mine is. You just want to figure out where you can be just to be able to move yourself just across that soft tissue there. And it doesn't have to be real hard. I mean, I'm using my arm to kind of take weight out of the roller rather than dropping into the role of completely, they're going to grow front and roll back. Okay.

In rural friends and roll back. Yeah. And let me just do that one more time. Rolling Front. And then from there, I'm just gonna hope I don't fall off the mat, but we're gonna just start to roll down that. Outside of that lay egg, I'm using my arms to help me and I'm using my legs to press and I'm just rolling out towards the knee and I'm in a roll back.

And then rover does do three [inaudible] and normal back [inaudible]. Just one more, your bias towards the front of the leg or towards the back of the leg. And then just gonna bend that knee, bring myself down. So keeping that leg bent, the leg, it was just on the roller and it take the roller over to that other side. [inaudible] lift this arm up and then side bend, just allowing the roller to roll underneath the hand.

[inaudible] and lift back up and reach up in over [inaudible] and lift back up. Just when we reach up in over on this one, we're gonna take that top arm and you just go where it feels good to you, but just bring it around, bring it around. Maybe it starts to lower down in the direction of the roller opening up through the back, come back gently and up. Okay. And then the roller is on the right side or the correct side for me to just be on my other side. No, we all have one side that will feel more difficult. And for me it's this one, so and again just trying to keep my bottom need doesn't have to lock.

I'm actually softening my bottom knee and again I'm using my arm a little bit to to keep weight lifting up out of the roller rather than burying down into the roller with my body weight and back. We'll just do that one more time. Forward and back and then we'll go back and forth. Just little rocks back and forth, back and forth. And then we're going to go just over the hand. I'm going to start rolling the roller down. Psi and backs three passes down thigh.

Yeah. And back [inaudible] no, there's some controversy now about should we go on the roller or should we not go on the roller? And I don't know the answer, but what I do know is that when I get down, I feel better than when I got on. So whatever controversy there is out there around that, that's my answer in my own body. And then the roller came around to the other side. We're gonna lift the arm, just pushed the roller away.

It's gently and come back and push the roller away. I enjoy and come back up and push the roller away. And this time we can around the spine and then allow the arm to start reaching down for the roller [inaudible] and then back. And uh, and then we're gonna turn our bodies so that the roller is behind us and they put it just right up against the base of the spine. And then I'm gonna use my feet to push up or the strength of my legs to push up and come back down. So now we've got the Nisa. Okay, that's going to let the knees go. Side Center.

Bye. The centers, I'm just rolling across my sacred now. That's fine into again, just the soft tissue on the outside of it. Can I do one more? They're going to lift the legs up when to take one leg towards us and one leg down and we're going to make a big open circle with the legs all the way around and bring the legs back. We'll do a few in one direction, one leg down, one leg back.

I'll have in bonds to be heavy on the roller and imagine those legs just reaching out lightly in space. Tracing a circle in all its different dimensions. We'll do one more in that direction. Up and are around and reverse all round. Big Open stretch, reaching down through the bottom like center or I don't know. Okay.

Center to more light in the legs, especially the light in the bottom, like as we're lifting it back up. One more and then we're going to bend the knees. We'll take the right ankle on the left. Now what you think here about being almost reaching the tailbone around the top of the roller. We're going to take the knees to the left into the center and to the right into the center and to the left, into the center. And to the right into the center would go one more time to each direction, to the left center, right center. And then we're gonna take that right leg, bring it in to the body, let the left leg hang down towards the Mat. Can rest on the mat. It can float just off the mat. I had one of my strategies is to take the bent knee, the right leg and pull it wide and just all, and then disseminate to open up the front of the left hip.

And don't forget to breathe here. Okay. And then careful, careful coming back. I'm in a very gently start bending that knee and then bring it up. Then we'll do left to ankle on right knee.

I hold the roller underneath me so I make sure I don't fall off it. Let me take the knees over to the right. Okay. And censure and over to the left and center over to the right. Yeah.

And one more time while this side and then one more time on either side. No. And then in the center, just bringing the left leg in, allowing the right leg to reach out and down. We could start taking the leg out to the left, just breathing the pausing and the stretch. Okay.

Coming back to center. Carefully bending that knee. And then as we go to get off the roll or what I want us to do is just bring the knees in towards the body and very, very slowly start rolling the roller out from underneath you. But, but in a way that it feels like you're trying to lengthen the skin, covering the sacred, feel the stretch. Maybe just try to stretch the skin on top of the Seagram and down towards the tailbone. Eventually we'll roll all the way off and you'll get there in your own time.

But that stretch that going really slowly through that stretch feels good to me. So I'm going real slow. Yeah. Real slow. Yeah.

And then once you get all the way down, she feel quite good. She can rest on the mat. I'm just going to take my roller off and rested on the ground where I do a couple more stretches here. Maybe I'll put it over on this side. So let's take the right leg out straight, lift the left leg up, hold the outside of the left leg and bring it across the body carefully back. And then that light can reach out straight. The right like can Ben will take the right leg across the body and then back up straight and then bending both knees but setting the feet so that they are wide. We'll take both knees over to the left.

So there's just a one opportunity for a stretch. Use in the back of the right hip to press forward into the front of the right hip. And then maybe you want to take your left foot and pull that knee away from the head. So, not necessarily way down towards the floor, but more like you're trying to length in the knee, away from the hip joint, and then back to center over to the other side. Finding the stretch first. Yes. Be Patient Meredith. And then maybe we decided to bring the right foot up as well and bring the knee even more over and then fact to censure and then stretching both legs long.

I'm just feeling the sensation of heaviness and can we simultaneously be heavy and the light in our bodies? Maybe the bonds are heavy, but the tissue is light. Okay. Ah, their bones are heavy, but there's a sense of levity, levitation. I don't know. It's all just an idea. That's what I'm looking for.

And when you're ready, you can help yourself up. We're going to call that that. And if you're interested and you have access to a reformer, uh, there will be a reformer class looking for the same ideas. So thank you.