Foam Rolling For Developing
Intuition by Using Your Body

The purpose of this article is to introduce you to foam rolling as a new tool to enhance your understanding of yourself, and your body. The key to using a foam roller for a deeper mind body connection is to learn to listen to your body and the message that it contains while you roll. It is the same process as when you do other holistic health exercises such as those on this traditional Chinese exercises site and Yoga, Tai Chi, QiGong, etc. You are just using a different tool for health, flexibility, body awareness and self-discovery.

Tune In, Be Aware Of Your Body

The rolling exercises that I describe are about staying in tune with your body and to be aware of all its sensations while you are moving. Developing intuition by using your body never pushes through terrible pain. This body movement is not goal-oriented but body-oriented and awareness-oriented.

It is moving in a way that provides peace and inner guidance from the wisdom that your body contains. It is about feeling the body’s pain and releasing it. It is not about pushing toward a goal or pushing beyond your body’s limitations. It is not about pushing through more than moderate pain.

Rolling on a foam roller can achieve a new level of body awareness for you. It can tell you where your imbalance lies. Foam rolling is an activity that athletes and physical therapists use to roll out stiff and sore muscles in the body. It is a way of elongating and keeping overused muscles supple and flexible.

Free-Flowing Muscle Movement

A sheath of connective tissue called fascia surrounds all of your muscles and supports and lubricates them. This allows for the gliding of the muscle in relationship to other muscles and tissues, and allows for free-flowing muscle movement. This fascia around the muscles is known as myofascia, the prefix “myo” in Latin is for muscle.

Muscle Knots, Hot Spots

During your activities of daily life, the way you move your muscles causes the bunching up of the fascia into sore, tense areas. Specifically, those areas that you hold your tension and your emotions are stored as muscle knots and hot spots. This bunching of the fascia is easy to find. Just feel your neck and shoulder for the lumps. If you have ever had a massage, the therapist will stop on these lumps and push and massage deeply to try to break up the muscle knot and release them.

Self-Massage

Foam rolling can release your muscle knots for you. It is a form of self-massage or what’s known as self-myofascial release. Self-myofascial release is often called the poor man’s massage because you can do it yourself without the help of a therapist. There are times when the luxury of a massage is greatly appreciated and your body sings!

Self-myofascial release, however, is for the times in-between when you can’t afford the massage or don’t have the time to squeeze it in. Self-myofascial release also allows you to totally control the movement, the area of focus and the exact pressure that your body needs for healing. No instructions to another person. You just do it.

When you roll on a foam roller for self-myofascial release, you stop at the sore spots and hold the pressure there as you deeply breathe, until the muscle releases. Sometimes this takes several attempts and several days to get an overused or overstressed muscle to release. Your unique patterns of tension, accumulated over the years in your muscles are often not undone in one session.

You unknowingly repeat the same held patterns of tension over and over again – hence, the lumps in your neck and shoulders. But you will feel better after just one session and each and every session on your foam roller! I promise! Even though rolling may be painful at first, it will become easier over time as you learn to release the muscle hot spots. When you make foam roller exercises, stretching and other meditative movements a routine, the build up of the stress knots is less severe.

Mind-Body Connection

Just like in other holistic health exercises, the combination of the movement with the breath is what makes the activity so beneficial to you. Foam rolling is no exception. The mind body connection is very important and you can use the rolling activity to focus on your areas of stress, tension and overuse for developing intuition and listening to what your body has to say to you.

As you focus on the areas of muscle stress and deeply breathe, you can meditate on the meaning of this area’s tension in your life. Your body is a storage ground for all the emotions that you have not released. Meditating on your sore area while you roll and deeply breathe can reconnect you with these emotions and allow them to be released.

Don’t create more pressure while you are rolling so that you cannot comfortably deep breathe during the movement. The pain should only be mildly moderate, so that the deep breathing will keep your muscle relaxed. If the pain is too great you will hold your breath and tense your muscles during the foam rolling. This will create the opposite effect.

Instead of releasing the stress and the emotions, your muscles will tense more. No releasing there! No body mind connection there! All body awareness will be lost. Developing intuition to hear your body’s messages is not about pushing through any terrible pain. It is finding that area where you can still deep breathe, relax and move into the mild to slightly moderate pain to fully experience it so it can be released.

You will know the amount of pressure and pain needed for the release. You will feel it in your muscles, in your body and in your soul! If all you want to do is scream, you are doing it wrong. Ease up on the pressure until you can relax and deep breathe again.

Listen To Your Body

Be open and aware of your body as you foam roll. Learn to hear its messages as you move in a meditative fashion. Try to understand, specifically, where it is that you hold your stress. As you roll these areas, unexpected feelings may arise from your foam rolling session. Some of my readers describe their feelings as weird, or downright scary.

Others cry unexpectedly, and don’t always know why. For me, I thank my body for its messages. I bless my body with love. I move into the mild pain as I hold the pressure on the roller and deeply breathe. It is a feeling of incredible release and healing when the stress and the muscle let go.

My hips are a constant source of aching. They are the center for my creativity and as I ‘give birth’ to new ideas and move toward a new direction in life. The desire to ‘move forward’ too fast is very strong in me. The muscles of the hips are powerful muscles in the action of moving forward. They represent the body metaphor of moving forward in life – or for some people, paradoxically the fear of moving forward.

Affirmations

I have always been goal oriented and being able to release control to God/the Universe is one of my affirmations I say while I do my rolling on my hips. I say, “I release control and move to the rhythm of God’s time,” and, “I am moving toward the direction of my heart.” The great feelings of peace and release that I feel while doing foam rolling in this meditative fashion are priceless!

Yoga, Stretching, Qi Gong

I follow up with Yoga poses and stretches to elongate my muscles for a full meditative, body-mind-soul exercise. I also practice Qi Gong as well. All these holistic health exercises marry well with the meditative body mind technique using foam rolling!

You can start developing intuition for yourself, today, to strengthen your body awareness and your body-mind-soul! Listen to your body and its stored pain in the foam rolling activity. Breathe and connect and feel your body’s messages. Release and let go!

May your journey to health and healing of your body-mind-soul begin by learning to do foam rolling!

~ Article submitted by Elle Bieling. You can follow her on The Body Window, Foam Rolling where she teaches you how to use your body as a tool for finding your true self. You can find health and healing by using your body as a window to your soul.