Do These Foam Rolling Moves to Relieve Muscle Soreness from Your Lower Body

In a previous article, we’ve shown the different foam rolling moves to relieve muscle soreness and speed up recovery in our upper body. But we also wanted to cover moves for your lower extremities. The thing is, we didn’t want to bore you with a long blog post.

So instead, we decided to make a continuation. If you haven’t read the first foam rolling blog post yet, click this link first before continuing. Without further ado, these are the different ways to use a foam roller for muscle soreness relief in your hips down to your foot.

1. Hip Flexors and Iliotibials

Your hip flexors and iliotibial bands which are found on your side thighs are the most stressed areas of your body after doing a bridge hold. Start by resting your hip flexors on top of a foam roller and slide upward to press your IT bands. Targeting these areas for recovery are very important especially for pro cheerleaders doing toe touches.

2. Glutes

After your glute workouts, sit on a foam roller and move forwards and backwards to release tension and tightness butt muscles. Vibrating bumpy foam rollers are highly recommended to be used here because this type of roller is good for reaching the thick tissues of your bottom muscles.

3. Groin

If you have run, cycled, or used an elliptical machine more than you should, chances are that you will experience an adductor strain or groin pain. To speed up the recovery in this area, you need to rest your inner thigh on a bumpy foam roller and slide sideways.

4. Hamstrings

Hamstring soreness is often caused by activities that require you to sprint, suddenly stop, and sprint again. Tennis, football, basketball, or running events are examples of sports that can cause severe pain in the back of your thighs. You can combine glute and hamstring foam rolls into one routine by either starting from the back of your knee up to your glutes or reverse.

5. Quads

Like hamstring soreness, quad soreness also comes from doing running sports. And to heal your quad muscles, position the front of your thighs on your foam roller just above your knees. Then, roll backward until the roller reaches your groin. Repeat this process until you feel relief on your quads.

6. Calves and Lateral Shin

Your calves and lateral shin are just the hamstring and quad versions of your legs. The only difference is that you need to use a low-density foam roller for your shins. If you use a firm roller, you could experience a lot of pain as the tibia is very sensitive.

7. Foot

The feet are the most disregarded part of the body when it comes to post-workout recovery. It’s because we tend to shrug off the discomfort we feel in these areas until it’s too late. There are a lot of ways to foam roll your foot.

You can either step on a medium density roller or use any kind of small hard to soft-textured balls like a golf or tennis ball. Make sure you’re sitting as you foam roll your feet to avoid falling over due to a slip-up.

Foam rolling is essential in the world of fitness. It just doesn’t increase post-workout recovery, but it can also prevent accidents, injuries, and cramps if done as a warmup routine. Make sure to include foam rolling in your workout program.

Discover more tips on how to make all your pro cheer activities safe by reading these articles!

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