Foam Rolling Your Way to Body-Mind-Soul Health!

The practice of foam rolling is more than physical. The purpose of this article is to help you learn how to perform self-myofascial release and heal your body, mind and soul!

‘Why do we spend years using up our bodies to nurture our minds with experience and find our minds turning then to our exhausted bodies for solace?’ ~ Author Unknown

You learned in the Body Window that you hold tension in your body as a result of your habitual stress patterns. You hold your breath as you pull in your stomach and tense specific muscles as a result of strong reactions to strong emotions.

Emotions and movement are very closely related. You repress emotions by restricting the movement of your body! When you tense and restrict the movement in your body all sorts of trouble ensues.

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You also learned in Emotions Affect Our Body that your body is a storage ground for the emotions that you keep suppressed. Your body stores emotions if you are unable to feel them and heal them by allowing them to be felt fully and released. These emotional responses lead to the holding of stress that leads to the problems of the tight, sore, tension-filled muscles.

Understanding Where Your Muscle Knots and Hot Spots Are!

Your held tension targets certain areas in your body and certain muscles as a result of YOUR specific stress pattern, and YOUR habits of holding stress in your body.

That specific area where you hold your tension creates an imbalance in your muscles and in your body. The constant, static tension held in muscles leads to tightness and weakness in the affected muscle.

This tightness is called a muscle knot, hot spot or trigger point. Other muscles attempt to take over for the tight and weak ones, which can no longer perform as well. This leads to stiffness, knots in muscles, and poor joint mobility. All of this eventually results in a stiff body that is unbalanced.

This lack of balance is more than just physical. As you have learned throughout my website the imbalance is one of the body-mind-soul. When you become more body-aware, you continually develop intuition when you use your body.

It is true that often your affected body parts are metaphors for what is really going on in your life. If you read my article on metaphors you will better understand body metaphors as they are used in our culture.

Your muscle issues are often issues of your body-mind-soul. We all have a weaker side - a side that is tighter, sorer, more overused. We are all unbalanced and need work! See the body metaphor?

Creating balance and health in your body, automatically creates health in your soul. Creating health in your body will automatically create emotional health. A healthy mind can only exist in a healthy body.

Simple, Most Enlightening Tool for Body Health

Now you are going to learn one of the simplest, most effective ways to take care of your body and loosen its restrictions. Those who discover foam rolling, myself included, become addicted to its therapeutic effects. Athletes all over the world depend on the foam roller. 

No other gym toy works quite like the simple, lowly and inexpensive roller. You can purchase a 36" x 6" foam roller for under 20 US dollars.

I am particularly fond of the 36 inch long, full round foam rollers, in the high density, EVA material, since you can do so much more on them, as you will see in my articles below. This is the only style I recommend. It is the one shown in the photo to the far right, the longest one.

Do get the 36 x 6 inch round, as this size is much more versatile and it is what I show in all my roller exercise videos!

12" 18" & 36" Foam Rollers

I like to roll on a yoga sticky mat too, as I think it gives a bit more cushion than rolling on the hard floor. Carpeting may suffice as well. 

I have also read where some really tough guys use PVC pipe for a roller! Now that is some serious self-myofascial release! I would not recommend it to start out, for sure.

I use PVC pipe with a piece from an old yoga mat glued to it for comfort, when I really need to get deep into the muscle. But this is very infrequent now, as I make foam rolling a consistent part of my healthy lifestyle. 

Foam rolling is my personal favorite technique for understanding where your imbalance lies, where your muscle knots and trigger points are (Yoga is a hot second favorite for me).

If you have done your body scan, that I taught you in Developing Intuition by using your body, you would know which area to begin your work. If you have not yet done a body scan you can still begin your rolling session, because often through the process of deeply rolling the muscles you discover muscle knots you did not know you had.

I like to think of muscle knots as representing congestion and toxins in your life. This clutters up the muscle and creates junk that needs clearing! As you foam roll, think of it as removing all this congestion and clutter.

We all have too much clutter in our lives, in our homes, in our hearts and in our souls that is manifested in our bodies. While foam rolling, invite this congestion to dissipate and allow simplicity, peace and understanding to flow in instead.

Rolling the lower back with the Spanish Peaks in Colorado behind me.

Body-Mind-Soul Reasons for doing Foam Rolling

Foam roller exercises provide the following benefits:

• Quickly discover your personal body-mind-soul areas in your body that need to be worked on – the link between the body and emotions is very strong and a significant factor for health in your life.
• Removes knots in muscles or otherwise known as self-myofascial release.
• Increases blood flow to the area in need of healing, to speed recovery for tense and over-used muscles.
• Increased awareness of each side of your body, which side is weaker and which side is tighter, so that you can work on rebalancing your body.
• Required balance to perform the exercises automatically builds core strength without doing endless crunches!
• Aligns your spine/cracks your back vertebrae.
• Self-massage through using foam rollers saves money on expensive massage therapists!
• Overall feeling of well-being is immediate after only one session on a roller AND after each and every session.
• Uses powerful body-mind-soul techniques that nourish you with Self-Love!

Self-Myofascial Release

Rolling exercises are a very effective way for self-myofascial release. The fascia of a muscle is simply the fibers or thick layer that surrounds and encapsulates a muscle.

Fascia also surrounds other tissues and organs of the body. The prefix 'myo' stands for muscle therefore myofascia simply means the fascia of the muscle.

The purpose of the myofascia is to support and lubricate the muscle. As the muscle contracts, the fascia prevents the muscle from catching other muscles or tissues.

The myofascia consists of microtubules of collagen and elastin that carry the lubricant fluid. Nerves and blood vessels also travel through the myofascia. The fascia is rich in nerve endings.

When the fascia becomes compressed or twisted, the sensation of pain or soreness is felt. This is the ‘hot spot,’ the muscle knot. The sensation may also be carried down the length of the muscle and to other tissues as well to feel like a sore hip or sore leg.

Foam rolling is often called the poor man’s massage. It is very effective at deep tissue muscle work or self-myofascial release.

You can control the pressure by the amount of weight you apply to the roller. You can also control the exact location for the pressure, by shifting your weight slightly up or down, right or left. Plus you can hold the pressure for as long or as short as you like. Self-myofascial release on a roller is totally controlled by you.

By rolling a muscle you can easily find the knots, loosen them and elongate the muscle by rolling it. It is generally thought that by practicing Pilates, Yoga and body rolling, you will lengthen your muscles and therefore lengthen your body. As a result you will feel longer and taller.

Feeling longer and taller is more about balance. The feeling of elongation, evenness and balance is felt when your muscles are flexible, relaxed and without tension.

Often you don’t know how relaxation and balance feel because you are trapped in abnormal ways of holding and sensing your body.

When you start using the foam roller, you will learn where your imbalance lies. You will know which hamstring or which quadriceps group is pulling more of the weight, because that side will be sorer or tighter. You will focus your self-myofascial release exercises on that sore and tight area.

Re-balancing your body through rolling it uses self-myofascial release techniques that help you balance each side more effectively. You become cognitively aware that one hip is sorer than the other, or one IT band is tighter than the other.

If one side is tighter or more sore than the other, most likely you are using the one side more than the other.

When you do your body rolling and physical movements, meditate on your weaker side and tell it to pull the load evenly. Reflect on your balance, both physically and your life balance. Listen to your body’s message.

Rolling out the Hamstrings

Self-Myofascial Release and Emotional Release

The added benefit of foam rolling if you make it a meditative practice, it can also be a tool for emotional release. When you roll your muscles, the physical tension is released. The feeling of well-being is enormous if you add the meditative dimension and really open your heart to what the significance of the tension in the particular area may represent in your life.

When you roll a muscle, if you sense a spot or knot that is sore, hold the pressure of your weight over that area for a while, about 20-30 seconds, or as long as you wish. B-r-e-a-t-h-e as you sink into the sore spot. If it is too painful that you cannot breathe, ease up on the pressure.

Deep breathing is the signal to your body that you are in the relaxed state. If you can breathe deeply while holding the pressure on the muscle, eventually the muscle will release. This is the secret to foam rolling the body-mind-soul way.

If while rolling, the pain is so great that you have to hold your breath, the opposite effect will occur. Your muscle will tense up and become even more painful. Only apply as much pressure that you can continue to deeply breathe!

Also do not roll the muscle area too vigorously at first or you may cause bruising and more soreness to occur. Go slowly if you have never done this before.

Really notice your body and how it responds to the specific foam roller exercises listed below. Feel the tugging, the stretch, the discomfort and sink into it. Breathe deeply as you sink farther into the muscle. Let go. Let the tension go, let the stress go and let the muscle release.

When the muscle releases, so may your emotions, your need to control and hold the tension! Let the feeling and the release come! Feel it and heal it! It will do you body, mind and soul wonders!

I always seem to have lower back and hip issues, especially on the right side. I deeply roll the lower back and hip areas and say personal affirmations for health. For me it is: "I am supported in all things. I release control and surrender to a larger plan that awaits me with all good things, so that I may prosper and be well." These are my issues.

Do your body scan (See Developing Intuition) to discover your personal area(s) that needs attention. As you roll your muscles, contemplate the possible meaning of your sore areas. Create Positive Affirmations for Health to heal your body-mind-soul.

Just remember that foam roller exercises may bring up feelings you did not expect. The emotional response is unique to you and may be ‘weird,’ frightening, confusing or just different. Embrace the emotions by just staying aware of them, and if you feel safe, move into them to feel them fully. (See Emotions Affect Our Body for more information on this technique).

Thank your body for its message and sit with the emotions along with the pressure on the muscle until they are released. Eventually over time, as the physical and emotional congestion is cleared, the rolling exercises will bring you great feelings of release and therefore peace and calm.

Foam Roller Exercises

Please see the exercises that I have posted below, to help you with your intuitive movement on the foam roller. You can use a 36 inch roller or a smaller, 18 inch one, it doesn't really matter. However, if you are a beginner, I have found that the 36 inch one is much easier to manipulate at first. It is important that you just get a foam roller and begin!

My videos are meant to be a starting point only. As you start your foam rolling on a particular muscle, don't forget to follow your own intuition, close your eyes, and sense where you need to move.

There is no real right or wrong way to do it. Roll your body slightly to the left, the right, up or down, to get your sore spots and the areas that you discover need work. When you do this, all parts of the muscle can be targeted, which may be very important for you personally. Body awareness is vital in this practice, so use your right-brain to increase your own personal body awareness.

Happy Foam Rolling!

My Complete Foam Rolling Series of Articles and the Metaphysical meaning of each muscle group:

• Myofascial Release ~ The Self-Emptying of Body-Mind-Soul Kenosis
• Using Your Roller for Developing Intuition.

Foam Roller Exercises for the Lower Body and Lower Back:

• Lower Back (Lumbar Spine).
• Hip Muscles that Focus on Opening Your Hip.
• Iliopsoas (Hip Flexors).
• Piriformis and Gluteus Muscles (Hip Muscles).
• Iliotibial Band (IT Band) and Tensor Fasciae Latae (TFL) Muscles (Side of the Thigh).
• Adductor Muscles (Groin Muscles of the Inner Thigh).
• Hamstring Muscles and Quadriceps Muscles (Thigh Muscles).
• Gastrocnemius Muscles (Calves) and Anterior Tibialis Muscles (Shins).

Foam Roller Exercises for the Upper Body and Upper Back:

• Upper Back (Thoracic Spine).
• Shoulder Muscles that Focus on Opening the Shoulder.
• Trapezius Muscles.
• Latissimus Dorsi (Muscles in the Side and Back).
• Pectoral Muscles that focus on Opening your Chest.
• Upper Arms ~ Biceps and Triceps.
• Forearms ~ Brachioradialis, Wrist Flexors and Extensors.

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