Sometimes I Get Freaky With My Foam Roller...

Oh foam roller, you wonderful painful piece of foam I could not live without!  Oh how I love, yet hate you all at the same time.

Needless to say, the foam roller is turning out to be one of my most important pieces of running gear I own. This was not always the case. I mean, I have always used the foam roller, but I didn't really usseeee it, if ya know what I mean.

In the past, my time with the foam roller was short and sweet, mainly because it hurt like the dickens. This should have been a sign to me that I needed to spend more time rollin. But honestly, I was never quite sure how I should have been using it. Or how long should I be using it???

About 2 weeks ago, I was talking to a buddy that is a super fast sub 3 hour marathoner (something I will never see) and we were talking about how my knees were starting to bother me. The inside part of my knee is what was bothering me. So we talked about this and he mentioned that it was probably my IT band that was causing the pain! He explained to me how the IT band could be affecting my knees. He went on to say how spends up to 2 hours on the foam roller. He will search and search until he finds that sweet spot and then just work it out.

I have never been on my roller for 2 hours!!!

So I went home and did about 20 minutes.  Close enough right?

I rolled very slow and methodical and it hurt, but I could actually feel my IT band releasing after a few solid minutes on it. So I did the same thing the next night and the night after that. 3 straight nights I spent on the floor with my roller. And guess what?

My knees are feeling much better. So I am sold on it and I have been doing it just about every other night and I am loving it ( I really hate it, but you know what I mean) It's a lot like running, you may hate the mile you are on, but you love the end result. So if you do not have a foam roller, get one!