Improve Your Posture & Feel Great In Your Spine By Laying On A Foam Roller
This will be your favourite piece of equipment, I’m telling you!
Hey you know how in my last blog, I told you how easy it is to do a functional workout at home, with very little equipment? Well, posture training and spinal alignment is just as easy to do at home too! Actually it's much more convenient, as postural training should be done much more regularly, and in some instances be done daily, to combat all the things dragging us into poor posture each day.
You see, postural muscle fibres are different in make-up and abilities, as compared to skeletal body muscles, which gives us our tone and bulk, and are also more dynamic in nature. The two types of muscle fibres have different functions in the body, so it's not surprising that their characteristics are different.
Postural training - can be done daily, done slower, is more 'stability in the joints' based, will take longer to perform each exercise, and might not really give you that pump or euphoric feeling you might be looking for within a workout? It's not it's job to. Your postural muscles have to work 24/7, so if you exhaust them in a workout like what squats might do to your thighs, then you will have a big problem. They have to keep on holding up your spine, your neck and support your joints... even after the workout. So the training for postural muscles or injured muscles will always have it's own specific way to get results. It can still be demanding, don't get me wrong. It just won't be explosive, dynamic or exhausting.
I have many many many clients come to me with alignment issues in their spines. Often their postures are not what I'd call ideal. But ALL can be improved and in most cases, totally reversed! Even some of the nasty Scoliosis cases. You wouldn't believe how many people have Scoliosis and don't even know it. Their poor bodies are always trying to adapt and deal with the forces upon it, from not being neutral in alignment.
So a Foam Roller is a wonderful piece of apparatus to assist you in getting your spine back closer to neutral. It kinda takes the job of a therapist to 'Mobilise or Manipulate' your spine. This way you can do it for free, at home, and more regularly, so you will see better results. It is 90cm long and composed of a firm durable foam, which allows you to lay your whole spine down on it. There are a bunch of moves you can do with this roller, in order to manipulate and mobilise your spine into a better position. So what moves you do, depends upon what your postural condition is.
The foam roller can also be used for muscle and fascia massaging, or be used to make a strength exercise more unstable. This can be done by sitting, laying, kneeling, stepping onto or standing on the foam roller. It also comes in half rollers which provides you with 1 flat surface and the other rounded, to assist you in some of these exercises too.
So if your posture is a little crooked, now you know that one part of your rehabilitation is to mobilise your spine. And the foam roller will definitely help with that!
Go to my YouTube channel or Facebook - YourLifeYourBody to see a great exercise to get you started. Otherwise, feel free to make an appointment with me to target in on your needs.
I hope that reading this, has led you to sit up a bit straighter in your chair? Haha It usually works that way. I tell people what I do, and automatically they shift their weight more evenly and stand up a little straighter. Well, I'm fine with that, if that's the effect it has.
Enjoy! :)
Jodie Hopkins
The Posture & Pain Re-programmer