Creative Foam Roller Flow

Hi there. Sarah Berticelli here. Let's explore some creative ways to use the foam roller. This particular sequence for me is a really great morning wake up routine focusing on using my back body while opening a little bit more the front body. Let's get started. So I would like for you to begin with your foam roll in a place so that you have some space to roll back a little bit.

And we're going to put our upper backs on the foam roll and work with a little bit of mobilization. So I have brought myself forward here. And I'm going to just lean back onto the foam. We're also my feet when my knees are bent or kind of at the front of my mat there. And one of the ways I really like to teach mobility of the thoracic spine here is to just find that first point where you feel completely relaxed over the foam roll I see a lot of people lifting the bottom up here, and that's not really giving you a good mobilization for your thoracic spine for your rib cage.

So will you really feel that your bottom is relaxed? Your legs are in a comfortable position for you. And wherever you've begun, you feel that you can relax both your head and your low ribs with ease. And then breathe here. Breathing in and breathing out.

Seeing if you can send some breath directly to the foam roll. So to the ribs on the back, to the foam roll, breathing in, and breathing out. Now if you feel any restriction that doesn't feel good, one option would be to bring the arms a little bit forward. The elbows a little forward. Another option would be to move your body a little bit down so the foam roll is slightly higher up your back. But find the place where you feel really quite at ease and give yourself at least 3 to 5 deep breaths. And then we're going to slowly slide the body just a vertebra or sew.

So I've slid my body up the foam roll is a little lower on my back. I feel complete ease here in this movement, and I'm feeling an openness through the front of my body. Well, while I'm working on breathing through the back body specifically to the ribs, laterally, and posteriorly, Take a little gentle lift looking in the direction of your pelvis just to ease up a little bit, look around with your eyes, feel ease in your neck. And then leading with the head go down again, breathing in, and breathing out. Now I'm going to slide one more times so that the foam roll is a little lower on my back.

We wanna be able to get to the point where you're at the bottom of the ribs safely for you. My head is now pretty much resting on the mat, breathing in. And breathing out. And if you can really slow down this movement, this position, you'll find that you might begin to feel some really beautiful openings across the front of your body. One could straighten their legs here if that feels better and move a little bit forward and back according to what feels good in your body with straight legs. So I decided to take my role a little lower on my back, My arms are resting on the mat.

My head is resting in my hands. My legs are relaxed, and it feels good here for me. So the most important thing when breathing into this shape is is making sure you're in a position that feels good. And then look for a little bit of mobility and agility or wiggle room. So what I'm what do I mean by that? I am using the bones that are connected to the foam world ground into the foam roll to kind of float my head, allowing me to kind of move around a little bit with my eyes and my upper back, So what's actually happening here is my front body is working a little bit while I'm exploring range of motion from my back body.

I'm gonna bend the knees, and then I'm gonna slide now a fair bit up. So the foam roll is more up behind the base of my neck and my head is just relaxed over there. So this might feel really nice for some of you across the collar bones. If it doesn't feel good, then don't do it, find a new spot. But if it does feel good, breathe here for a couple moments, breathing in, and breathing out. Then I'm just gonna gently lift my gaze toward my legs.

I'm gonna slide back to that middle range where I first began and go down inhale and exhale ground through the foam roll to look in the direction of your pelvis. Inhale reaching down, relaxing, exhale ground into the pelvis, look in the or ground into the foam roll, look in the direction of the pelvis. And let's just do one more like that, and then we're gonna hold that shape, please. So here we lift. We hold the shape.

We send the arms forward. I'm gonna pick my feet up and push my body back a little bit. And find this place, again, pick my feet up, push my body back a little bit. So now I feel as though I am leaning on the foam roll with my low back, I'm keeping that shape of rounded back. My shoulders are relaxed on my back body, and I wanna create just a little bit of intention using my abdominals, but breathing to the back body. So once again, I'm trying to feel that I'm breathing in the ribs, lateral and posterior. And holding the shape.

Can I easily lift up a foot? Yes. I should be able to. And then here, Lyft your bottom up, pivot your body over the foam roll, placing your head and your shoulders down. Hopefully, you're in a position where you're still on the mat, but certainly if you need to adjust, go ahead and do so. So I've got my pelvis resting now on the foam roll. My legs are relaxed on the mat.

My hands are wherever they need to be comfortably so that I feel secure here. Will you allow yourself to go into a little bit of low back bend. So what that means is your tailbone is relaxing a little bit over that foam roll. And then Just settle for a moment here and make sure that you feel safe. If it doesn't feel safe being relaxed here, adjust your body forward or back so that you feel quite comfortable in this position. Be mindful of where your head and your shoulder blades are, so try to keep your shoulder blades grounded to the mat. And your head is touching the mat with w, wiggle room so you can kind of roll aside, decide at any point.

Routing through the pelvis, let's rise one leg and then the other leg up. I'm keeping my knees bent quite relaxed. And I'm gonna take my pelvis down and over that foam roll. I'm bracing the foam roll a little bit with my arms, and then I'm going to curl my pelvis up. So ultimately, we want the roll to stay pretty stable, but it's okay if it moves a little bit. Drop the tailbone down over foam roll opening into a backbend, grounding through what is on the roll to scoop the pelvis up So you're going into a little bit of a re excuse me, a little bit of a reverse curl here and then lower down.

And then use your breath and lift it up. Please make sure you're breathing. And one more time, lower down. And then lift it up. Try swaying just a little bit side to side.

So it's a little bit of a spinal rotation here. Very relaxed. I'm not thinking about what I'm doing. I'm just kind of swaying side to side on the roll. And then let's place one foot down and then the other foot down. Again, find that place where you feel settled with your pelvis that it is being held here by that role and in fact, ground a bit through the pelvis into the role to feel some activity in your body. So when I press down through my pelvis, I feel my abdominals working for me.

Can you hold this shape for me and just lift one leg to tabletop and put it down? And then the other leg, I'm flexing my ankle today to just help work on Doris deflection. Certainly, you could point your foot if you wanted to. So just practicing that marching action and trying to feel that your pelvis remains rooted on the foam roll while you march and while you breathe. Now we can add to this and we can float the arms up to the ceiling and feel the shoulder blade grounding of the leg that's lifting. So think about pelvis and shoulder blade. We are now doing some cross patterning, which is really crucial for everyday life activities.

And this is a really nice way to practice strength and agility of using your back body. One more time, please, and then put the 2 feet down. Let your arms rest. Do you feel comfortable straightening one leg? Shake the leg out.

Do you feel comfortable straightening the other leg? I felt like I needed to move just a little bit so I did. So my legs are relaxed. I'm in an open hip flexor position. My pelvis is being supported really beautifully by foam roll, and I feel like my hips are getting a nice stretch. If you feel pinching in your low back, you might wanna keep one knee bent at a time. If you feel safe here, ground into the pelvis, to the foam roll, float one leg up, and then the other leg.

I purposefully am keeping my legs sloppy, meaning I'm not pointing or flexing. I'm not actively trying to do anything with my leg, except feel as though I can float it up without thinking about using the leg, but thinking about using the abdominals. Or the core guts. Rest that, then both knees for me. So we've been in a back end for a little while.

Sometimes for me, it feels like I really need to flex or round my spine after this. So I'm gonna scoop my pelvis up a little bit, lift one leg, lift the other, hug my knees into my chest, but I'm still supported now by the foam roll. Enjoy that shape for a moment. Breathing in. And breathing out.

And then just kind of slide the pelvis, or their foam roll out from underneath the pelvis until you feel that you can rest gently on your mat. And then I just like to put my feet on the other side of the foam roll so I can contain my foam roll. Stay here for a few moments, feeling your head heavy, feeling your rib cage grounded, and feeling your pelvis grounded. Swaying your head side to side, perhaps swaying your legs side to side, just kind of releasing a little bit through your back here. Let's go ahead and put the feet now on the foam roll and just rest with your legs straight so that you can feel the backs of your ankles resting on that foam roll. And I just want you to massage your hips a little bit by bending in and out.

So my knees and my toes are turned out. My hips are kind of relaxing open or my legs are relaxing open. Now let's add a circle. So we come together when the knees are bent and we slide to straight. Turnout. Come together when the knees are bent and slide to straight. Let's do that just two more times.

Just nice, easy movement. Turning out, pulling in. And sometimes the foam roll kinda gets away from you. You'll just have to readjust. And in the opposite direct so here my legs come inward and bend.

My knees are out as I straight. And just two more like that. And one more time. Beautiful. So let's change the arrangement and so roll to your side here. And you're going to wanna put that foam roll now so you can lie on your back here.

I'm going to move down just a little bit so that I can be more on my mat. And getting up on the foam roll and making sure it's straight can be a little bit of a of a challenge. So figure out your path here. Take just a moment sitting right on the front edge of your foam roll and see if you can soften up some of that pelvic floor tissue. My dear friends, this would be a really great thing for you to just sit and do.

Not only will it help achieve the deep squat, which is important for everyday life, functionality, but it also helps to stimulate the pelvic floor muscles a little bit. So we're gonna come to the very forward position. We're gonna use our arms and our leg carefully to roll yourself back. So if you're comfortable without using your hands, go for it. Otherwise, just use your hands and find your way. Set yourself up on the roll.

So your head is hanging off just a little bit, right at that occipital ridge. So the, the pointy part of the head is just off. And then I like to begin with my knees bent so much that I can feel the foam roll between my feet. If that doesn't work for you, you'll have to find another way to align yourself. But that allows me to feel where my feet are.

And then I'll move my feet a little bit away so that my knees are not quite so bent. So feel your 3 body weights, your pelvis, your rib cage, and your head grounded. Let's put a little more attention on keeping the base of the sacrum grounded. That's just above the tail and your head. With your arms first by your side, just kind of feel this position.

And then keeping the stability, float your arms up. So here, we're gonna open the arms wide spreading the collar bones and the shoulder blades. Then we're gonna squeeze the foam roll with the shoulder blades on the back body, taking the hands maybe to the floor, and then we lift up and we hug our bodies tightly continuing on. Open, spread, squeeze, lift, and hug. So see if you can potentially change which way you're hugging or which arm is on top each time. What do I mean by that? So right arm, left arm, one will be on top when you hug. And really give yourself a big hug there and move at whatever pace suits you.

I'm not looking for perfection. I'm looking for you just to keep moving your arms around. Opening squeezing, lifting, and hugging. So you can do that a little longer if it suits you, but for the sake of this video, we're going to go and move on. Turn your hands so your palms are facing away from you, and let's take our arms behind us, keeping the rib cage grounded, how far can you go with straight elbows and then lift back up.

Now if you can touch your hands to the mat, wonderful. If you can't touch your hands to the mat, Keep reaching and allow maybe your rib cage to respond a little bit. So perhaps your shoulders will allow your hands to touch the mat behind you. And then float back up. And so here, we wanna feel stability first, and then we wanna reach, reach, reach, stretch a little bit more and then feel the rib cage ground down as you lift back up.

Keep practicing that movement and you Once you feel like you've got a handle on it, I'm a really a fan these days of moving a little bit faster, not rushing, but just allowing the brain to on to the feedback that's happening versus trying to manage every little thing. One more time here. And then we're gonna take the arms on the diagonal outward, hugging the foam roll at the bottom, and then we cross the hands, touch the hips. So we open outward up on the diagonal and hopefully you're changing the hand that crosses each time. Not that big of a deal if you don't remember once or twice, but see if you can think about changing each time. So here I am reaching wide and then squeezing with my back body and then hovering and tapping my hips one more time. Now the arms are gonna go straight up to the ceiling for me.

Allow your shoulders to lift so I'm rounding through my upper back, then your shoulders come neutral with your spine or on your back body and then you hug the show, the foam roll with the shoulders as you bend your elbows and touch the mat. Hopefully, you can do that with nice bent elbows really using your back body, float back up. Let's do that again. So I find that this is a really great way to teach my clients how to use their, muscles around their shoulder blades. Oftentimes when I'm teaching the rowing exercise, people are doing it just with their arms. But when you can feel the feedback of the foam roll to make this shape, to actually hug back there and then actually press the elbows down.

It gives us just a little bit more sensation on our back body. So stay down this time. Your elbows are down. You're squeezing. Try to feel your shoulders away from your ears.

You've got nice support from your belly. See if you can lift one foot up and then the other foot up. So I'm balancing now my legs. My feet are just gently pointed and my knees are together at tabletop. I'm gonna feel the rooting down through my elbows, the opening of my heart, the ease of my neck, and holding this for a little bit longer. See how light you can keep your elbows.

So maybe you entertain the idea of lifting and trying to balance here. Maybe you tap a foot down and up and you practice a little cross patterning, playing with using your upper back to help you connect better with the rest of your core. Put your 2 feet down, relax your arms, Relax your legs. Take a breath. So my arms are wide.

My legs are wide. I'm breathing in. And I'm breathing out. And then very gently slip yourself onto your back body allow the foam roll to roll out from underneath you. And let's take 3 or 4 breaths together. Just relaxing flat on your back.

Your arms are wide. Your feet are relaxed. Notice how wide your body feels. How grounded yet light. Breathing in and breathing out.

Try to feel the diaphragm helping you to cultivate breath in the side back body or side back ribs. And in your own very natural time, you'll choose to make your way upright. Please do take your time. And I thank you so very much for playing