How to Warm-up – A New Look at Foam Rolling

Today we’re going to look at a new way of foam rolling.  If you have AMPED, you already know why you should be foam rolling, but if you don’t, you might want to read on.

In my last article, we talked about the importance of the quality and extensibility of the soft-tissues (tendons, ligaments, muscles, fascia) in our body.  Slow deliberate foam rolling is one way to improve these qualities, especially if you’ve been hanging out in bad postures all day or you have some lingering injuries.  Poor soft-tissue quality and limited movement is a recipe for injury.

“Movement is lubrication.” – Steve Maxwell

This new technique will provide you with some progression to your foam rolling and allow you to introduce more movement (or flow) along with your soft-tissue work.  This is key as a pre-workout or pre-sporting event prep to improve your movement and performance.

The Med Ball Flow

I’ve spoken about this technique a few years ago in this video.  If you want to see me with hair, check out the first video I made for this technique.

As a progression, we replace the conventional foam roller with a hard medicine ball.  The med ball allows for more flowing movements and the opportunity to transition between muscle groups easier than the foam roller. Also, rolling on the foam roller is typically done in long strokes traveling up and down the length of the muscles.  With the med ball we can flow three-dimensionally around the extremities and along any pattern.  In fact, you are only limited by your own imagination.

Throw Away Your Foam Roller?

Should you just throw away your foam roller and stick to the medicine ball?  Absolutely not!  Use every tool available to you; the stick, lacrosse balls, foam rollers, medicine balls or even the end of a barbell.

Next Level Soft-Tissue Work

The revolution is not in the tool, but in the movement.  Soft-tissue work that is done with the body in motion, and not in a locked position as with conventional foam rolling, will free up your movement potential and take your warm-up to the next level.