If you are a runner, whether it be professional or recreational, your recovery, well being, health and injury status is of great important to you. Running long distance puts a huge stress on the body. The constant pounding sends stress up from your feet to your lower back. The feeling you get from running, the health benefits and the fitness gains are great… but you need to make sure you can manage your body, and keep it pain free. A great way many people are keeping their muscles and joints pain free is with a foam roller. A foam roller for runners is a must, and one that can help you manage your pain and keep you getting personal bests.
Common Running Injuries
- Runners Knee
- Stress Fractures in shin and feet
- Shin Splints
- Achilles Tendonitis
- Strained and Torn Muscles
- Sprained Ankles
- Illiotibial band syndrome
- Compartment Syndrome
- Plantar Fasciitis
How Can You Help Your Pain?
If you run regularly, it is a good idea to keep your muscles tissue healthy. This is where a runners foam roller comes in handy. Massage can give you a lot of great benefits. You can recover faster, reduce injuries, heal a lot of aches and pains, correct biomechanics problems and just generally feel better. If you are a regular runner and you can get regular massages, you will be out on the track for longer, and have the ability to work harder. For the rest of us that can’t spare $70 a session, we are in luck… a good old foam roller for runners can do almost as good a job.
By using a foam rolling after running, you will get all the benefits of massage, but you won’t have to pay a thing. Even better is you can do it whenever you want. If you suffer from Runners Knee, using a foam roller can help you on your way to being pain free. You would need to work your quadriceps, all three of them… as well as hitting your glutes. If you suffer from ITB syndrome, then you can get on your foam roller around your glutes, hip and directly on your ITB to help relieve the pain.
I think you are starting to get the picture. A foam roller is a very useful tool for runners, and all that is left is to know how to use it. Check out The Ultimate Self Massage Guide for step by step instructions on how to release your body with a foam roller and a tennis ball. you get pictures and instructions on how to release all the important muscles, and you will find you are on your way to pain free running faster than you expected!