Fun with SMR

When we can’t get as many massages as we’d like (and really, does anyone get that many?), we can get some of the benefits from doing self-myofascial release (SMR).  This is all that stuff that people do with foam rollers, various kinds of balls, and, my favorite, the Daiso store duck hook.  Here are my five favorite SMR exercises.

1.     The duck.  This is basically a hook with a handle that fits over the shoulder.  The head of the duck rests more or less on that place where we put our thumbs when we rub someone else’s shoulders.  The handle ends up at chest level on the front of our body and pulling down creates pressure.  Almost all of us have tight upper trapezius muscles and this helps.  The Daiso tool costs $1.50, so it is cheap enough to have one at the desk, in the car, and anywhere else we end up sitting for any length of time.

2.     The ball under the behind.  The various small balls that can be used for SMR have different hardnesses.  The softer the ball, the gentler the release.  Many people who start out with SMR might want to choose a tennis ball.  A kid’s pinkie ball is a little firmer.  Yoga Tune-Up Balls are the next level of firm and come in handy sets of two in a mesh bag.  Lacrosse balls are the firmest (although if you do this while driving, the softness of the car seat will mitigate this a bit).  To do the exercise, sit down with the ball under one cheek on a relatively firm surface (i.e., the couch is not a good place for this, but a kitchen chair is great.).  I know when someone has found the right spot because they make a face.  It should be the good kind of pain, though, and it should lessen over time.

3.     The chest opening on the foam roller.  To do this one, we lie with the foam roller supporting our spine from our behinds to the back of our heads (note:  some foam rollers are not long enough for this—choose carefully!).  We can bend our knees to put our feet flat on the floor for stability.  We stretch our arms out to the sides until our hands touch the floor on either side.  This should provide a nice big stretch across the chest.  Leaving the hands on the ground and leaning to one side or the other will stretch the opposite side a little more.

4.     Floor angels.  This one builds on the previous exercise.  Lying on the floor with the roller along our spines, we take our hands into prayer position at our breastbones.  We move the hands up across our faces and over our heads, then open them out like we are making a snow angel all the way down to our hips.  The hands come back together and move up to the breastbone again.  Repeat five times and then go the other direction.  This will loosen up all the muscles around our shoulder blades and is great after a day stuck in a chair or a long drive.

5.     Rolling across the back.  I like two ways of doing this.  When I want a quick fix, I use the foam roller perpendicular to my spine and roll from my sacrum to my neck, stopping at any particularly tender spot to work it out.  If I have more time, I take the Yoga Tune-Up balls in the mesh bag and put one on either side of my spine for some deeper, more directed work.

We all need to do some things to make our bodies feel good.  Go play!

Leave feeling better...

In my own Pilates practice, my workouts have two parts.  One part is made up of exercises I need to do all the time to keep my body functioning as it should.  It is familiar and warms me up for the other part.  Sometimes it gets a little boring because it rarely shifts.

The second part is where I push myself a little, revisit exercises I don’t do as often, work on movements that really challenge me.  I might whine a little (or a lot…  I’m there by myself and there is no one to be annoyed by it!).  I might have to go slower than I’d like.  It gets hard.

What I find is that I need both halves.  If I spend too much time on the foundation stuff, I don’t make progress.  If I only do the hard stuff, I get frustrated and sore.  What works best is to approach both halves with patience and curiosity and openness—what is happening in my body today? 

This is the same approach I use with my clients.  The early parts of their workouts are routine and we both get to check in with where their bodies are in the moment.  From there, we can choose exercises to address whatever is going on.

At the end, we want to leave feeling better.

Kind of exciting...

We are all special unique unicorns, just like everyone else.  What this means is that all of us need to evaluate the information we get and decide what parts are good for us.  I know this is more work than just accepting a ready-made program or solution, but it is much, much better.

While this is true across all of life, it is especially true about fitness.  When we show up to a fitness class, we need to make sure to tell the instructor about any injuries we might happen to be dealing with or moves that are not helpful in our bodies.  Good instructors welcome this kind of information because it helps them know what kind of feedback is useful and what sort of modifications to offer.  So if someone says they have a shoulder injury, the instructor might suggest not taking a movement to the overhead extreme, but to stop at a pain-free level.  Or someone with bad knees might need an option without jumping for some exercises.

There will always be exercises that we don’t like.  For many of them, we can find substitutions.  Every once in a while, there is a good reason to do an exercise we don’t like but isn’t actually bad for us.  When we know that it is just a little bit of the workout, we tend to be able to tolerate it more.

One of the things we develop when we work out is strength of character.  We learn to advocate for ourselves because we learn what helps us and what doesn’t.  As we pay attention to how our bodies work on a daily basis, we notice what patterns persist and which change as we grow.  It’s kind of exciting!