Foam rolling/mobility

[GingerThor]

Hi folks, 

 

i want to start incorporating short morning and evening mobility sessions into my daily routine. I'm thinking of doing 15 mins foam rolling in the evening before bed as it meant help you to relax, but I was wondering if a 15 min foam rolling routine in the morning would be a good idea? What do you guys do to get your day started and finished, any particular movements/routines that are recommended? 

 

Thanks to anyone who reads/replies

[Anim07734]

In my experience, foam rolling is best performed immediately after a workout, or occasionally as part of a warm up (especially prior to an intense strength session).  Trying to do it with cold muscles isn't going to help as much.

 

You also don't want to do a workout/warm up right before bed, as that will just keep you awake until your body cools down again.  I recommend a slow, meditative-style yoga routine to help wind things down.  I've had a yoga session take me from "let's go run around the building and climb all the things" to "maybe I'll skip dinner and go to bed early" before. 

 

As for morning routines, that's really up to you.  A good warmup followed by foam rolling could be a nice start to the day, or I know people who like a morning walk/run to wake up, or do a quick bodyweight circuit to get the blood flowing, or have a more active yoga routine to "greet the sun."  I'm an anti-morning person, so I sleep until I absolutely have to start moving. 

[Wobbegong]

I'm with Anim on this one (except about the morning... get up early! Enjoy the day! :D) 

 

Foam rolling is best used as a cool-down technique in conjunction with stretching. Think of foam rolling as basically being self-massage. It feels good (well... maybe painful at first, but that can be good too), and maybe the resultant lack of tension enables you to stretch a little further, but it won't really affect your basic range of motion. For that, you need to actually use the range of motion! (Surprise) GMB has a great program for improving mobility that doesn't call on foam rolling at all. 

 

I usually use foam rolling more when I'm doing high-impact exercises (I run during winter, but summer is swim season!), because my muscles deal with more stress and so massage feels better at those times. Usually I'll warm up, run, stretch, and then foam roll. Every once in a while, if my calves are so sore I think I won't be able to sleep, I'll do a quick foam rolling session before bed to relax. Like Anim said, though, it's best not to be too active right before bed because it'll keep you up. 

 

Hope that helps! 

[GingerThor]

Thanks for the quick replies  I'm currently doing the GMB elements program which is tackling my mobility during the workouts, I just thought I'd benefit from doing a bit more mobility work in the morning and evening aswell. I mentioned foam rolling in a the evening because I've seen it mentioned in jelly starretts book supple leopard so wondered if peeps shared the same views