The Best Thing You're NOT Doing For Your Body

   For the most part, everyone knows that they should warm up before starting an exercise routine.  Maybe you already knew that but you just don't do it; maybe you just hop on the treadmill for 5 minutes and then go ahead and hit the heavy squats; or maybe you didn't know you were even supposed to warm up, in which case you can just fake like you did since you already read this far into the blog post.

   To me, warming up means that I'm priming my muscles to perform at their maximum potential.  Why would I want them to perform at any other level?  With that being said, if you jumped out of your seat right now and jogged in place for about 3-5 minutes, do you think you would be able lift heavy weights or play a pick up game of basketball at your body's maximum potential?

  Really?  You who has been sitting with terrible posture for the past 45 mins (at least). 

  Although performing a well thought out dynamic warm-up is probably the best way to warm up (and probably a good topic for a future post), you can do something much simpler (and shorter) in order to get your body primed and ready to work!

  Enter the foam roll.

  It doesn't look like much but spending 5 minutes or so with the foam roll can drastically improve your workouts and help you get the most from your muscles.  Think about how you probably feel right now hunched over your keyboard.   Your lower back and upper backprobably feel tight.  With that your hip is tight and probably feels like it's got a little knot in it.  How do we "iron out" these issuse fast and effectively?  It's called self myofascial release.

  Think deep tissue massage.  We are going to use the foam roll and roll over these tight, knotted up areas so our bodies can move effectively.  You see, not only do our muscles need to be flexible, or have enough length, to move well but the quality of our muscle tissue also has to be good.  How much better can you move your head around after someone gives you a nice neck/shoulder rub to work out the knots?  We're looking for the same results with other larger areas of our bodies.

  So for me, I always like to start a workout by foam rolling my lower body and lower to mid back.  Once I find a tender area, I make 5 long, sweeping rolls and then move to the next area.  You can see me go through my progression here. 

  Like all exercise's, using this method will feel better the more you do it.  So make foam rolling a consistant part of your warm up routine and start getting more from your body.  If you really love it, which I know you will, you can pick up one of these bad boy's for about $10 bucks and your local sporting goods store.