It started with tightness in my hip flexors that no amount
of stretching could relieve. I limited my running and
cardio workouts, did more yoga, took more rest days and
still, I couldn't find relief from this darned tightness.
Fast-forward two months. Now, my lower back was talking to
me; stiff in the mornings and taking it's good old' time
loosening up. Next were the hamstrings they were so
reluctant to loosen up that I could feel them when I bent
over to tie my sneakers. I especially felt this in the
mornings. This pushed me over the edge.
I like to think I've always been athletic, at least
throughout my adulthood. I am passionate about anything
that breaks a sweat. I adore running and biking. I've
taught spinning classes since spinning began. I've
completed triathlons and half-marathons, all for kicks, and
mostly with no foundation of training. I just woke up and
felt like running a road race so off I went.
Or at least I used to. I have no patience for these nagging
physical limitations. I'm only 45 years old, for criminy
sakes (and 45 is the new 29, right?)
My husband (who I met at a 5K road race by the way) would
also want me to mention that my personality tightened as
well as my hamstrings. In the trickle-down theory, if I
cannot do my regular daily workouts, everyone in my family
suffers.
I do believe in divine intervention though and about this
time I discovered the foam roller exercises through a
fabulous New York City teacher, Susan Hitzmann, owner of
Longevity Fitness, Inc. She offers a program called
M.E.L.T., which stands for Myofascial Energetic Length
Technique.
I coincidentally ended up in one of her many workshops
about fascia and what to do about it. She offers tools
(many on the foam roller) to add length and to therefore
relieve muscular discomfort. Turns out that it wasn't just
my muscles that were tight but the overlying and
surrounding sheath of fascia that were giving me problems.
What's fascia? Think of it like a wet suit that fits snugly
over your muscles, like a web or a net. Some people have
more than others.
She showed us techniques of rolling on a foam roller that
rehydrates those fascial sheaths of tightness, eliciting
and immediate sense of length, space and release. Man! It
was a profound release too; like unbuttoning your jeans
after a big meal.
I was totally hooked after one workshop. I got myself a
foam roller, which looks like a yoga mat rolled up, only
bigger and made of foam.
I started rolling at home. In just a few minutes, my
muscles released. All it took was a few passes up and down
my thighs to feel my hips let go. With as little as five
minutes a day, three or four days a week, I noticed that my
hamstrings released their stranglehold. My lower back
didn't wake me up in the morning anymore. I kept rolling
and just focused on any areas that felt tight. Then I would
pick a few other areas on my body, depending on what felt
needed.
For example, my side hip and butt didn't feel tight when I
moved around all day but when I rolled up and down my side
hip-YOWL! There was tightness lurking that I didn't even
know was there until I used my super-duper rolling pin of a
foam roller on the dough of my thighs.
Over the next year, I continued to attend workshops and
classes worth the phenomenally talented Ms. Hitzmann. I
remembered her from her days as an aerobics teachers,
famous for making the Crunch Boot Camp Video. Her story was
similar to mine. After experiencing limiting soreness that
no amount of stretching could relieve, she set out on her
own to find some answers. After years of research and
diligent experimenting with herself as the guinea pig, she
developed this foam roller program, among other fascial
release techniques.
This tremendous fitness development is not just for baby
boomers, but especially for what I call "baby zoomers";
aging jocks who are not willing to give up or even modify
their fitness regime because of stiffness or increasing
lack of flexibility.
It is important to notice how you feel BEFORE you roll.
Compare this with how you feel afterwards. My hunch is that
you will sense that something has released.
My muscles melted, which loosened up my lower back, which
helped me sleep better. In turn, I woke up feeling not only
more rested, but more flexible. I was able to resume my
daily cardio and strength training routine. In the
trickle-down theory, this vastly improved my daily moods. I
was nicer to my husband and kids, and in essence, I got my
life back.
----------------------------------------------------
Penny Love Hoff, 20 year fitness professional . is the
author of the revolutionary CD workout program"Does My
Marriage Make Me Look Fat?", an eight week fitness program
for couples to radically change your body and reawaken your
relationship.You can find her at
http://www.pennyhoff.com
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