In this video, chiropractor Dr. Troy Dreiling talks about Foam Roller Exercises that stretch and strengthen.
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Video Transcription
Hey, it’s Dr. Troy here from Zenaptic Chiropractic.
I encourage a lot of our patients to stretch and foam roll. The ones that listen to me and do what they are told, they’re the ones who get the best results. That’s really what we want for our patients. Even if you’re not a patient, you’re watching online.
Exercise One
So this first picture here is a picture of Lisa in my office. She’s laying on the ground. She’s got her butt on the ground and her feet out in front of her. Her goal here is to try to touch her toes. A lot of my patients they are 8, 12, 16 inches away from touching their toes. You know when you’re little, when you’re preteen you could definitely touch your toes, no problem, super flexible. So what happened? Well, we probably neglected ourselves.
So, this is a great stretch to help increase your flexibility, take the pressure off the disc and nerves, the ligaments. One of my buddies, it took him two years of doing these exercises before was able to touch his toes. He’s so excited that he can touch his toes now. First thing we do is, you sit, you take a deep breath in and as you go to touch your toes, you breathe it out.
Exercise Two
The next picture shows Lisa sitting there and what she’s going to do is, so many people now, they have this forward head posture. The next exercise is Lisa extending up. So, after you come down to touch your toes, then you come back up so you extend. You take a deep breath in and extend. Then, when you go to touch your toes all the way out so you get this pumping motion of the spine. It’s kind of kind of euphoric as well.
Exercise Three
The next picture is Lisa with their legs crossed and she’s basically touching her hands out as far as she can onto the floor. You breathe in and with your legs crossed you [forward bending motion with large exhale] all the way out as far as you can. Hold it for second and come up. I recommend doing this 12 times to get 12 deep breaths. You can see that this stretch, it’s a great stretch.
Foam Rolling
The other thing that I recommend is foam rolling. In this next picture, you’ll see Lisa. She’s got the foam roller kind of in the middle of her back. Right in this region. [Motions toward mid to upper torso area] She’s going to roll the foam roller up and down the mid-back region so we can get into extension, extension through our mid-back, not necessarily our neck, but more of our mid back because so much of us are like this [hunches forward].
It creates shoulder problems, carpal tunnel, headaches. People always ask me, “Oh, my heads out two inches. Do you think that would cause my headaches?” The answer is absolutely. So, she’s gonna roll up and down on this foam roller. The first picture is lower back and then you’ll see she lifts her butt up off the ground in this next picture. Then she’s gonna roll up and down, up and down on the mid back, so that you help stretch and open up those joints, the discs, the ligaments. It just feels good.
Now a lot of times I like to just hang out into extension, just for a couple minutes, not even really move. You can also do this on the bed. You lay over and put the bed on the mid-back, but I really like the foam roller because you can roll it around and you can really, really get in there and just make things feel better.
Summary
So, if that doesn’t help clear out your spinal issues you definitely gotta come see us. Free consultation to determine if chiropractic is right for you. You just call our office (360) 260 – 6903.
