There is a lot of information circulating the internet these days about foam rolling. From holy praise in one article to heavy criticism in the next, it can be a little difficult to figure out what to believe. Here’s our two-cents worth on foam rolling — when and where it can be appropriate and where to avoid using it.
Do you have a scar? (Yes, I’m pretty sure the answer is “yes”). If it’s from surgery, did you know that you should have massaged it? On this one, your answer is most likely “no, I didn’t know because no one told me”! So why should I massage my surgical scar and why did no one tell me?
You may really dislike this advice if you’re an avid leg-crosser. It can be a tough one to accept, but ultimately, crossing your legs really isn’t very good for you.
Part of the reason why is simply the act of sitting for hours at a time during the day (which is an entirely separate discussion that I’ll save for another time). But even more so, when we try to isolate the action of sitting with legs crossed, we see that it can create some significant imbalances in the pelvis, which then gets distributed throughout the body.
You’ve likely heard of the RICE method. It’s a regimen of Rest, Ice, Compression and Elevation in the process of healing an injury. Even though it’s deeply ingrained in our culture, we should no longer follow these outdated (and flat out incorrect) guidelines!
Breathing habits play a significant role in a number of aspects of our health, including (but certainly not limited to) the development of tension in our neck.
Now that’s a pretty controversial question, and I hope it’s not taken the wrong way. I have many Registered Massage Therapist friends and colleagues and I believe their work to be wonderful and effective and get many treatments of my own. But one major difference between these two modalities is that one is covered by health insurance and the other isn’t [very often].
Google “Thai Massage” and some of the top images you see are of Cobra Pose. Why is that? Is it because it’s such an amazing posture that everyone should know about and receive? No, I don’t think so. I think it’s because it looks flashy and special.
