Week 3 Recap

Tuesday:                  3 miles
Wednesday:            4 miles
Friday:                     3 miles
Saturday:                 5 miles
Weekly Total:       15 miles

Training Total:           46 miles

This week I got reacquainted with an old friend—the foam roller!  In my years as a physical therapist, I used the foam roller quite often when working with my patients.  I would have them use it in various ways for core strengthening and stability, as well as for working sore and tight muscles.  During the fall, my husband was training for a half marathon and was having some hamstring pain and tightness that was affecting his stride.  So, for his birthday in October I gave him a truly wonderful and romantic birthday present—his very own foam roller!  Now I think I owe him another birthday present because I seem to have adopted this one as my very own.

In going from running approximately 3 miles a week to 15+ per week (with many more miles to come!), my calves, hamstrings, and lower back have started protesting wildly!  I have always struggled with poor flexibility but right now it seems worse than ever.  I’ve tried to be more faithful with post-run stretching, but it just doesn’t seem to be enough.  After my 7-mile long run, much of which was on snow and ice, my calves were tighter and more painful than I ever remember them being, and my hamstrings and lower back were also quite stiff and sore.  I realized I had to do something more or different than I had been doing if I was going to recover enough to keep on track.

Enter the foam roller.  It had been rolling around the house since October, being used as a battering ram by my son and as a baby doll by my daughter.  (Crazy how the same object can be used so differently by a boy and a girl!)  I flashed back to my pre-kids life as a physical therapist and decided to try practicing what I preached.  And do you know what? I found 3 quick and easy exercises that I now do faithfully after every run and I am noticing a huge difference in my calves, hamstrings, and back pain and stiffness!

Here’s what I’ve been doing:

1.  Lower back: Sit on the foam roller with knees bent and feet flat on the floor a comfortable distance in front of the roller.  Keep your abdominals tight, belly button drawn in, and slowly roll forward so that the roller moves up you back.  Keep you hands on the floor at your sides for balance and control.  Slowly roll back to starting position.

2.  Hamstrings:  Sit on the foam roller with roller under one hip and the other leg bent with the foot on the floor.  Place hands on the floor at your sides.  Slowly roll backwards so that the roller moves down your leg towards you knee.  Slowly return to starting position.

3. Calves:  Place foam roller under one knee, cross legs at the ankle.  Keep hands on the floor at your sides.  Slowly roll backwards so that the roller moves down towards your ankle.  If this is too difficult or too painful (as it usually is for me!), you can uncross your ankles and keep calves side by side on the roller as you roll.  If that is still too difficult or painful, keep one knee bent with foot on the floor and roll one calf at at time.  

Hopefully I can stay faithful with my stretching and foam rolling and improve my flexibility as I train.  If you try these, let me know how it goes.  Or if you have other foam roller exercises that you love, please share them!  Happy rolling!     

P.S.  Thanks to my friend, Ginelle, for posing for these photos and for running 5 miles with me on Saturday while my training partner, Deb, was in Hawaii!