Hey guys… it’s Stephen here from CORE Therapy and Pilates… Happy Friday folks… I hope you had a great week, I hope you’ve stayed dry and warm out there.
Today I want to present a little bit on the recovery series… So once you’ve been skiing and your quads are thrashed and your ankles are thrashed, this is a series of things to do while you’re in the mountains. Everything we’ve done so far has been in preparation for the mountains or let me say it this way, as you’re preparing for the mountains, as your muscles get sore and tight, this is a way to help loosen up the muscles.
Today we’re going to use a couple of props: a foam roller, a rolling pin and different size balls to loosen up the muscles that have been overworked while you’re preparing for your skiing trip. With that said, I want to really start talking about two spots that I get the most shredding when it comes to skiing and it’s the quads and it’s right in the inner knees. So what I’m going to show you is a couple of things to do to manage the recovery piece. Stretching is good, but I find that using balls and foam rollers and different props are a lot more effective…
I’ve got a bigger sized tennis ball, it’s from Petco and this would be something I would recommend bringing with you to the mountains. Now what we’re going to do is lay down and put that ball right here between the legs while the feet go apart a little bit. All I’m going to do is roll my legs side to side. As I’m rolling side to side, I’m giving a good amount of pressure into that ball, so that little motion right there for several minutes is very good for releasing the quads and the inner thighs. That is one option…
Another option is the rolling pin… you can use a regular rolling pin out of your kitchen or this is called ‘The Stick’ and it has a little give to it. I’m certainly going to bring this with me on my ski trip, it’ll pack up nicely. Then you just roll your quads through here and the key with this is to roll in a straight position, turn it inwards to roll on the inner thigh and then you can roll it on that outer thigh. So that’s something that really makes a big difference after you’ve been working really hard out on the mountain or if you’ve been on a jog, this isn’t just for skiing. It is a skier series, but let’s say you’ve been out jogging or exercising, you can do any of this stuff for that as well… It doesn’t take a whole lot of force… inward and then outward… That’s two ways to release the quads, with the stick or a rolling pin and the big tennis ball.
I’m going to be driving to the mountains so I am bringing a big foam roller, if you’re not driving to the mountain, the small foam roller might be effective and then there’s also the grid. I actually travel with the grid because then I put the balls and the stick in here (the hallow part) and I pack it all together that way. With a regular foam roller, or a small one we’re going to get onto the quad. Now I’m a little wide for this, but I will barely fit, a lot of my clients will fit just fine. Get down in a plank position on your elbows and lay onto both quads and roll back and forth. The key here is to keep your abdominals engaged, you don’t your back sagging down to the ground and then roll on those quads… so those are just different options to get into the quads, all of them require some kind of tool.
Now I’m going to talk about the IT band… many people, they roll their IT band on the foam roller… I’m not a fan of that, I disagree with it, I would say if you are rolling your IT band using the foam roller… I would stop because it’s probably not helping it. I wrote a blog on that about a year ago that I’ll link to this so that you can see that as well. I’m not going to go into any more detail on that. So avoid the IT band, however the lateral quads are super important to release…
Now I’m going to talk about the glutes, in particular the piriformis. With the small roller, we’re going to sit on the roller and keep all the weight on one cheek. I’ve got all the weight on my left side here (when you watch this video it’s gonna look like I’m on my right side, they flip these videos for some reason) and I’m just rolling on my left cheek here. Then I’m going to cross my left leg over my right leg (again it’s gonna look like my right over my left in the video) and then roll them back and forth… so that’s your piriformis and you’ll do that on both sides.
The next two we’re going to do are the shins and the calves. The shins and calves are getting over worked a lot with the whole process of skiing or snowboarding. For the calves, I like to use the foam roller. Put that one leg on the roller, now I then put my other leg on it, lift my rear and do a little bit of back and forth rolling on my calves. This is good because it helps you work on your core as well. Now the shin, two options. One option is gonna be on the foam roller. We want to make sure that we’re not on the bone, but just out to the side. So then we get into this position and I’ve got my toe turned in just a little bit and then roll them back and forth and that’s the anterior tibialis… alright, now you can also use the stick for option two and roll it over the shin muscle, not the bone,…
I’m giving you several options, if you bring a rolling pin and a tennis ball you can do most of everything you need to do, the grid or the small foam roller gives you a couple more options… so that’s it for today.
I wanted to give you some recovery ideas… Everything we’ve done so far has been about strength, balance, ankles, knees, hips and core…well now what do you do when you’ve worked hard and maybe those guys are sore? This is the routine to do, so I hope that helps, I hope that makes sense…
Y’all have a fantastic day… like, comment and subscribe on youtube or facebook… we’ll see y’all soon guys…Happy Friday!
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