Thanks so much for the birthday wishes last week and over the weekend – very thoughtful of you!
I turned 45 years old – whew, did that ever go FAST! I am not one of those people who gets freaky about their age – to me it really is just a number. As long as my body and brain are holding up, then I am good to go.
I know that may not always be the case, so I won’t dare grumble about being 45 when I can still do any activity I choose to do. So look out 46 – here I come (once I get finished kicking 45’s butt). And now for the hockey stuff…
The one extra piece of equipment you should have in your hockey bag this season.
Don’t worry it is small.
It might inflict some pain.
It will improve your mobility.
It will cost about $5.
It is… a simple lacrosse ball (or tennis ball or squash ball or baseball or other round ball about the size of a baseball).
It is much easier to carry around than a foam roll and that discomfort you feel as it bores into your gluteus maximus is one of its greatest features, small surface area so you can get more pressure and therefore deeper in your self-massage.
I have shown you lots of self-myofascial release techniques before, but here is a refresher video with some different ways you can use the lacrosse ball specifically…
If you do not see the video above, just click the link below…
http://youtu.be/F6LlH1SGXmw
Remember that it is not a carnival ride, it is meant to be like a massage, so go slowly, find the tension points or trigger points or whatever you want to call them – and sit on them for a bit until they feel better.
Spend 30-60s on each muscle group before practice or games (so about 5-minutes) and you can do another 5-minutes afterward.
Before a game or practice you would do your myofascial release first, then your static stretch and then your dynamic warm up – Click this link if you missed the article on how to sequence your warm-up for hockey.
That’s it for today – outta here!
Cheers,
M
PS – anyone else watch the show SUITS? Anyone else get super frustrated by Mike?