Not yet…but soon.
Courtesy of Tumblr
I have a really good friend who is also a chiropractor. This comes in handy when I feel like being a baby and throwing all my workout-pain questions at her.
“Is this supposed to hurt?”
“Why does my knee do this weird thing?”
“Do I have to stretch?”
The last question is the one I know she’s tired of hearing from me. But she’s my friend, and she will deal. I have a big issue with stretching before and after working out–the issue being that I don’t want to. My muscles don’t feel too tight. I walk around for a while before and after the workout, which I think serves as a good enough warm up. My good friend the chiropractor says, sometimes not so sweetly, that I need to get over myself. It’s a loving relationship, if you couldn’t tell.
So when my knee started acting up on me, again, I texted my good friend the chiropractor. I told her the exercises the physical therapist had me do. She seemed OK with them, but also suggested I get a foam roller.
I am cheap. Like, ridiculously cheap. Buying more workout equipment seemed like a pain in the butt. Plus, it adds more time onto my pre- and post-workout routines, eating into my day. My good friend the chiropractor didn’t seem to care. “You want to be able to run, don’t you?” Her and her stupid logic.
Just so you know, we had this conversation well over a year ago. I visited her recently (and her ridiculously cute baby girl). Conversations steered toward working out and I casually mentioned I still hadn’t bought the foam roller. If looks could kill, this site would be a memorial page by now.
When faced with impending doom from one of your besties, you do what anyone else would do: You open Amazon on your phone and let her pick out the best foam roller for you. It got here a few days ago.
The foam roller is a lot more than it seams. It’s ridiculously lightweight (hence the foam) and extremely durable. What no one, including my good friend the chiropractor, tells you is that using this thing is painful. In an effort to knead out the knots in my IT band (which I discovered is NOT below my knee), I’m causing myself even more agony. Just to make sure I wasn’t doing this wrong, I consulted a few handy-dandy YouTube videos. Yep, it’s supposed to hurt.
The good news is it won’t always be this way. Because I’m a newbie to this foam rolling business, I need to work through the pain. Just like any new routine, I’ve got to get used to it before my body becomes acclimated to the “intensity,” as one YouTuber called it.
But, I appreciate what it does. If I ever plan on running a half marathon, I’ve got to be able to use my legs, knees and thighs. I’ll get over the pain, but until then, my good friend the chiropractor is getting side-eyed for the next couple of months.
I'm Skinny, Now What? 
Now What?