The lazy way to Flexibility
Do you have tight muscles?
Own a roller, but dislike rolling?
Dislike scrubbing (cross-fiber rolling) even more?
Does the thought send shivers down your spine?
Try this
Get your roller positioned on a tight spot. If you want to look around, prop yourself up on your elbows like my client Todd is below. He is targeting the inner thigh or adductors.
Stay there.
Don’t move.
No wiggling.
That’s it.
Aah, the beauty of simplicity.
Compress!
My client Kristin is doing a better job of completely relaxing while compressing her quad. She lies all the way down and is on a tight spot, but is not aggressively trying to beat it to a pulp with rolling or scrubbing.
Here she is relaxing and going after one quad at a time.
In this instance, she chooses to go after both quads.
If you are at home, you can turn on the TV and wait it out. The key: wait for the muscle to completely moosh out. I use this technique while FaceTiming or Skyping with clients. It usually takes around 20 minutes, but all of a sudden your muscle turns to moosh and dissolves.
It is remarkable.
Try doing it with a buddy!
Here are the children trying the compression technique for themselves. Annika goes for total relaxation and listens to music, while Sarah keeps an eye on things.
Both work great.
How does this work for other people?
Well, here is one recent example:
I was walking out of a meeting with friends, one of whom is training for Portland Marathon. He said that he needed help as his hamstring was crazy tight.
I offered to grab my roller out of the car, but he shook his head “no”. I smiled and was forced to demonstrate the magic of compression with my pink Hydro Flask water bottle on the walkway.
Apparently he is very literal and copied exactly what I did in the demo- (including using a water bottle even though they own rollers!)
His wife texted me this message later that night:
Give it a try and leave a comment on how you liked ( or dislike 🙂 compression!
Stay cool!
