Foam Rollers: Do's & Don'ts 101: Part II

I hope you enjoyed the first part of this series. The first half of this article focused on some of the benefits as well as some of the potential dangers of Foam Rollers. In this segment we will discuss some of the best situations in which to use a Foam Roller, proper use on certain muscles and more situations in which Foam Rolling is ill advisable.
So here is some more food for thought. It is ill advisable to Foam Roll on a tendon. You need to understand anatomy to realize that rolling on tendons is a bad idea. I will try and describe this in layman terms so you understand. Think of a muscle like a piece of rubber band or bungee band. If you stretch it, it regains it's form and with age just like our bodies, it begins to lose it's elasticity and can tear from over use. Tendons on the other hand are more like a piece of beef jerky. If you stretch it, it doesn't regain its shape so easily. In fact if you over stretch it, it loses it's original form which is what happens to tendons and ligaments when you injure them. The reason tendons recover so slowly is due to limited blood flow. If you use a large round marble to press and roll it over a rubber band, again like a muscle it regains its shape. If you do the same thing to a slice of beef jerky, well that just doesn't happen so easily. Using a Foam Roller on a tendon which exacerbate the overstretched tendon. A tight tendon, again if you understand anatomy, is actually due to a tight muscle. If a muscle is tight from injury or inadequate warm up, your tight muscle will pull at the tendons which connect it to the bone. So the tendon if you understand this, becomes the victim of a tight or knotted muscle until that tension is release. Once the tension on the muscle is release, the tension and strain on the tendon is like to release and relax unless the tendon was somehow directly overstretched such as in a sudden jerking and bending of the ankle due to excessive force.

As we discussed in Part I, make sure you are using your Foam Roller in areas where there is bone to protect the organs of your body. Also, don't do any rolling over your joints since there isn't much muscle in those area with the exception of the shoulder joint. You can roll over your Deltoids but it's actually quite difficult and awkward to do so. Instead have someone massage your shoulder with their hands or the famous runner's tool know as 'The Stick'.

Click Here to Purchase 'The Stick'

Great areas of your body to use Foam Rollers are your Calves, Abductors, Adductors, Tensor Fascia Latae (NOT your IT Band - Ilio-Tibial Band), Piriformis, Latissimus Dorsi and Thoracic Spine (avoid the Lumbar Spine as mentioned before due to risk of putting excess pressure on your Kidneys). All ways roll parallel in the direction of the muscle length rather than the width. If you don't understand anatomy enough to know what I am saying or find the muscles I just mentioned, you are probably better off not doing any foam rolling techniques. Your more likely to cause a problem rather than fix or prevent a problem.