Post Workout Recovery & Foam Rolling
I'm not exactly super young and lithe. I spent a lot of time sitting around doing nothing, and once you've done that for a certain amount of time, your body stops quickly recovering from workouts. The more you work out, the quicker your body will revert back to its old ways, but that process is brutal!
I find myself sore after every class. Not to the point where I can't walk, but there is always that dull ache throughout the whole body! The old remedy for sore muscles is light exercise. It's true, I find myself sore after lyrical on Monday, and once I start barre on Tuesday, the soreness goes away. That's because the exercise helps the burning lactic acid out of your cells quicker than it would if you were sitting on the couch riding out the agony!
Another amazing method for easing the muscle pain is the foam roller. If you haven't learned the awkward joys of the foam roller, you are seriously missing out! I bought this one from Target:
I find myself sore after every class. Not to the point where I can't walk, but there is always that dull ache throughout the whole body! The old remedy for sore muscles is light exercise. It's true, I find myself sore after lyrical on Monday, and once I start barre on Tuesday, the soreness goes away. That's because the exercise helps the burning lactic acid out of your cells quicker than it would if you were sitting on the couch riding out the agony!
Another amazing method for easing the muscle pain is the foam roller. If you haven't learned the awkward joys of the foam roller, you are seriously missing out! I bought this one from Target:
Can be found here.
Basically you just roll your body around on the foam roller, especially anywhere you feel pain or tightness. It works as a deep tissue massage! And it can look super awkward during use, especially if you are doing it at the gym. In order to get the inner thigh, shoulders, back, etc you have to lay in pretty bizarre positions, but it's TOTALLY WORTH IT.
In Contemporary/Modern class on Thursday, we did stag jumps. Not stag leaps, but stag jumps, where you leave the floor with both feet, enter an attitude position with both your front and back legs, and then land on one foot. It's not easy. The combination was run, run, jump, jump, stag, stag, stag, stag, repeat across the floor. Nothing crazy, but after doing so many stag jumps my hips and thighs were very sore!
Tonight I took 10 minutes and rolled out my glutes, hips, IT bands, lower back, calves, and shins. The actual process of foam rolling can be painful. To experience the most relief, you need to sit on the most painful parts for 30 seconds, or as long as you can stand. In 10 minutes, I went from very ouchy while walking to blissful relief.
Here is a good video that demonstrates use of the foam roller. You can find them on Amazon for really good prices!
Happy Dancing!
I love foam rollers, but you usually have to situate yourself on it. I used to ache every other class too when I started ballet again. I decided to get "the stick" to roll out my tired and terse muscles after an intense class. This stick is wonderful and I carry it now from home to class so whenever I need it it's there. After two and a half years of ballet and increasing the amount of classes each year, I now no longer desire chocolate, glass of wine, and a hot epsom salt bath after every class. It's usually a quick shower to get off the sweat and bed to regenerate.
ReplyDeleteYour blog is great, and reminds me so much of what I've been going through too. Thanks for sharing and good luck dancing :D