The coolest device you don't have...yet.

I thought I would share with you a limerick I wrote:

There lives a man named Scott.
Who's shoulder at one time was shot.
But he developed a device...
Which is orange and nice.
And now his bad shoulder is not.

That's the story of Scott Kay and "The Rotater".

A few years ago an avid motorcycle racer and mechanic by the name of Scott Kay, severely injured his shoulder in an accident. After the doctors put him back together, he was prescribed physical therapy, to regain range of motion and strength in his upper extremities. Scott would go to PT a few times a week, but was unhappy with his progression. Sure, he would feel great right after therapy but the next day, he would lose some of the motion that he had gained the day before. Frustrated with taking two steps forward and one step back, Scott decided to take matters into his own hands (albeit with limited shoulder mobility) and developed "The Rotater"
After playing around with a few different prototypes, he was able to find a design which allowed for him to do his shoulder exercises at home. This simple, yet ingenious design allowed for Scott to work on internal and external shoulder rotation on any plane he wanted.
It was long before word started spreading about Scott's little device, with people looking for a "Rotater" of their own. Check out the video (with snazzy music), here:

Foam Rolla!

When I was 8 years old, I was in the 25th percentile in height. This meant that 75% of my peers were taller than me. As you can probably imagine (except for maybe Lee), it was tough being a little guy, but my mom always said "big things come in small packages". Fine, she didn't really say that, but I really was kind of short growing up. The point is, the statement (which, again, my mother may or may not have actually said) is true: Big things come in small packages. The foam roller is no exception.



I was first turned on to the foam roller by my buddy Pete who had been running varsity cross-country and track for Stanford (incidentally, he won a national championship ring with them) Throughout high school Pete was an incredible runner but his flexibility was one of the few things he was pretty poor at. That was until he came back from Palo Alto for summer, when his flexibility had improved tremendously. I learned that his secret was this simple device, the foam roller. He said that his coach was very adamant on flexibility as a way of preventing injuries, as the definition of an injured runner is one who cannot compete to his fullest capacity.

I soon started to use the foam roller in my running regimen and noticed that any tightness that I used to have, whether it was in the anterior tibialis (shins) or hip flexors, was gone in only a few short weeks. Here at BASportsMedicine.com, we believe in everything we sell, but I am an especially strong believer in this product.

As I have all but retired from running, I still use it, only this time its to stretch my back after being hunched over a computer all day and my tightening IT bands.

SMIWeb.org has a great guide (the same one the Stanford runners got every year prior to the start of training camp): Foam Roller Guide.pdf

I've also seen people use the foam roller during push ups, to help strengthen the core and muscle stabilizers, but I myself have never used it in that manner.

The bottom line is that this inexpensive tool will more than pay for itself in a very short amount of time.