Creativity!

I can't tell you how many times I find myself crawling around my house for ten minutes or more, looking underneath furniture for our Quad Baller. It's our household foam roller... if you're an endurance athlete, I'm sure you've had some experience with these trigger point therapy torture devices. However, if you're not one of that set, the video to the right shows the process.

Do you want me to lie or be honest? Honesty is the best policy... foam rolling tends to be sheer misery under your own hand. But it works. Its function is a very high intensity massage to bust apart any lingering ickiness (to use a broad term to address all possible intents) in your muscles after training. It's particularly useful on the illiotibial band (the tissue connecting your hip and outer knee), but is also great on calves and just about anywhere it'll fit with those roller blade wheels.

So... flash to about 9:00 PM last night. Paul had gone to the store to pick up hummus and some bagels for his impromptu race breakfast. I had just finished stretching out my pretty tender ankle (I didn't finish a run on Thursday because of soreness...) and was searching in vain for the Quad Baller. Our tends to disappear. Because here's the real kicker... toddlers and babies love this implement! The Hobbes-it thinks it's his very own toy. Sometimes it ends up in his toy box...

After about ten minutes of searching, I sent Paul a message... he didn't know its whereabouts either. Continue search.

Happen upon this little magical wonder of trigger point massage:
















That's right... a raquet ball. That little guy fits right in the crook of my ankle where it hurts the worst! So, a few minutes of propping up and pressing my body weight on my new tool, as I rolled it up and down my sore tendon, and I felt pretty good. It's the best method I've found for massaging this sore tendon. I also rolled it around underneath my foot to loosen any tension in my arch/heel.

I'll give this a chance to work some magic. I've been reading more and more about the Graston technique and how it can seriously alter major sports injuries and take them back to a point where it's like it didn't even happen. That, ice massage, and a few other radical (by radical, I mean strange and sometimes painful...) massage therapies are now on my radar. I'm strong now, but not 100%. I'm being patient; I know it can take a long time for my injury to fully heal and leave me (at least close to) pain free. But if there's some less mainstream method I can try to speed the process, I may try it.

Happy rolling :D