Hydrating Foam Roller

Hi, I'm Amy. I'm gonna do a s another foam roller, a little segment. I'm using my softer of the rollers. This is the pro roller. And just the last time we did more hip, really specifically hip stretching and hip joint work. This'll be more neck, uh, occipital muscles that suboccipital muscles, a little decompression for the cervical, uh, occiput area, atlas, Atlas. And then working into the back of the body just kind of pretty much through the base of ribs up. So intention there is to decompress. So let's take our rollers sideways and I'm going to have, you know, this is important and it's nice on these softer rollers. There are a lot denser, a little squishier. You can get comfortable. This will not, this is not in a cervical spine. You're not putting your cervical spine on.

The ruler is the back of the skull. All right. And if you know your bones, most of us I think know where occiput is that protuberance of the back of the skull. That's where I have my roller right there. Okay. So the goal here intended, I was to decompress and to just bring some hydration. And some circulation to the back of the the neck. And uh, this might be something to do, you know, after class or before a mat class or a session, maybe you have five, 10 minutes extra that you want to spend on just your neck area. So here we go. We have our, there are ox put on the roller.

I have my knees bent when a slightly posteriorly tilt my pelvis just a little bit. Take a couple of deep breaths. Yes is it will also bring a circulation to your neck and your upper back. So you might feel some energy after this little segment. Now what I want us to do slightly, press your head onto the roller, the back of your skull, and you're going to assess this. You're going to turn your head right and left very slowly with a slight pressure on the roller. All right. And you can check in.

Some of us have a lot more range of motion turning right or left. You're F you're learning about yourself when you do this. And what I want you to find is as you roll your head side to side at this right now, the rollers not moving. Okay? Shouldn't be ideally. So you may need to limit your range.

I also want you to notice that your shoulders aren't coming along for a ride. This is really just rolling across the back of the skull, okay? Three or four each direction is fine. Even just that you are stretching, you're bringing some awareness to these saga up submittals here. Okay, now I'm going to go back my right and I'm going to start now moving the roller.

Very small. I'm choosing a head nod. You can do no circles. I learned both of those in my fundamentals. So what's this about? This is some bring in some juice, some more fluid fluid into this area, into the tissues. Well, it feels so good. I'm really now starting to feel it down in my of jaw and my upper trapezius.

Okay. Slightly press on the roller. Roll it to excuse me. The other side had Nah. So now you are mobilizing. When you're mobilizing, you want to be moving that ruler. You can do your circles of your head, you can stay with the nods. So you're bringing fluid into the tissues here. Don't forget to breathe, but you may notice just even in the nodding motion that you'll have more nod more the range. Okay. Now if you come back to my hair is really slipping, come back to the center, get that occipital bone on there and we'll go back to church turning right and left. I don't know if you can tell on me, but I have a lot more already on one rotation.

That makes me smile because it feels good. I want to roll across the base of the sculpt. Apply a little pressure. I'm gonna go one more time. [inaudible] okay. Now we'll go back to, we've done our head nods. We're going to go back to just checking out how much rotation we have.

You can see I have more now. Definitely on this side. Let's see what happens here. There is still that light pressure of your head on the back of the roller. But our goal intended is more range of motion, decreased tension, shoulders just falling back. And I'll do one more. All right, and then what do you want to do? I'm going to lift my head off the roller.

Just roll it behind and just feel my head on the floor. Oh my gosh. And it happens every time and love this. It's, it's, I feel like I've just fallen down to the ground. Like I've got a little more width and length behind my neck and that's the intention there to relax those, those muscles that sometimes get held and tight and can restrict some ease of movement at where the skull sits on the spine. Right? Which can kind of get a little Maggie. Okay. Now you could absolutely do that on the white rollers or the blue rollers that many of us have, but you'll, you might find a nicer relationship on the pro roller cause it's okay.

But if you liked the dense, go with the dense. So now I'm going to move the roller into mid ribs. We're going to do one more little mini section here and I've got it right at the bra line base of the shoulder blades. I'm gonna put my hands behind my head and support that that I just gave my neck. I'm gonna see how much length I have between my hip rib area and into my rib cage. So it's stretched.

Try to stretch my ribs over the roller that way long but not in a back bend, just more of a straight elongation. Okay. I'm going to check into it first and as then we go through, do a little bit of mobility through the ribs and sh scapula and upper back. We'll come back to this and see what, what else I have or what you have. Okay, so I'm feeling a fair amount but I would love a little more. So what I want to do again and place myself there, I'm going to start a little bit of rolling side to side. So same thing. I want to not move my roller but I'm moving on top of it side to side first.

[inaudible]. It's still in that slight posterior tilt just ever so slight. One more. Each side. I've done about four. Okay. Now I want to find one little area. Now we want to roll on it.

Now I want the ruler to move. I want to move on top of it. It's getting, oh, I'm feeling something there. Yes. Some hydration. Again, bringing some fluid to an isolated area. For me, it's that mid thoracic spine. So a little bit of motion. And again, on this softer roller I met, um, I'm able to go deeper into the surface of the roller. So it's like I'm becoming more with it than before.

Now I'm going to lift my hips up and move this ruler up higher onto my upper back, near my sh tops and my shoulders, and then flush down. I'm gonna roll up to the top of my shoulder blades and move down. My hips will come down. Ah, lightly putting pressure on the ruler [inaudible] and you just really want to flush and une fluid into these areas. One more [inaudible] going. I put those hips down. I'm gonna go into no more of a side bend. Again, not moving the roller.

I'm applying pressure in an isolated area. [inaudible] side, Benjamin do about each side. Here's my third. I try to let yourself go into the roller. Go into that squish. Okay, now I'm gonna go to my right and I'm gonna move a little bit just up and down on that writes just kind of a couple vertebral off those transverse processes and the left [inaudible] moving the roller, letting it move. All right, so lastly, as I come back to where I started, I'm gonna see how much more range I have is definitely up as if my ribs could keep going up and back on that diagonal. Again, I'm not going into a back bend. I want length and space between my vertebra on my back.

So I f I use this to follow from the cervical stuff so that the whole upper back is hydrated. Got a little more flow in my system in there. Ah, one more deep breath and enjoy the length you've just put into your spine and to come up. I'm just going to turn to the sidewalk, my hands up. Hope you've enjoyed that little hydration episode for your upper back in your neck. Thank you.