About BLACKROLL®

What is BLACKROLL®? Wondering what to do with the BLACKROLL® tools and why? Time to get in the know about all advantages BLACKROLL® has to offer and join in the rolling!  Working out with BLACKROLL® has been established in the Functional Training, (performance) top sports and manual therapeutic scene for some time and has now arrived in broader circles and sectors. BLACKROLL® offers people of all ages and sport levels the possibility to improve their flexibility, balance, mobility and strength by doing simple exercises and performing self massage.  Let's look at the muscular system and its characteristics and sum up the benefits of myofascial release with BLACKROLL®, which is increasingly supported by scientific research and a wide range of therapists and treatments.

Fascia

The muscular system can function, and is basically held together, because of an important but often overlooked tissue: the fascia. Collectively, this connective tissue, which surrounds and interpenetrates every muscle, bone, nerve and organ, comprises a three-dimensional full body “catsuit” that provides a network of support and structure for the body. The fascia have a huge influence on how we move, on our posture, our perception of pain and the muscular system. It is these elements of the body where myofascial release focuses on to prevent muscle ache and improve recovery of the muscles to eventually increase physical mobility, flexibility and thereby our performance.

Read more on fascia and its functions below!  

Myofascial release?

SMR, which stands for “self myofascial release”, is an effective technique to ease tension and adhesions in the muscles and its surrounding fascia. BLACKROLL® offers qualitative tools with various densities to target these tensions, providing an intense massage of the muscles and fascia, which has the similar effect as a sportmassage. Except with BLACKROLL®, you decide exactly what part of your body needs more attention. Injuries from overuse, inflammation or even surgery can cause the fascia to scar or harden, which will give you that unwelcome stiff feeling restricting the body to be optimally mobile and flexible. Through self massage, hydration of the fascia is stimulated and will improve and restore the range of (joint) motion, reduce muscle prevent muscle ache and improve recovery of the muscles to eventually increase physical mobility, flexibility and thereby our performance. For a most understandable explanation about the relevance of hydrating the fascia (analogy of a sponge), read more below.

Everyday use, warm up and cool down

Using BLACKROLL® before and after your training or just to start up your day, will not only improve your sport performance but also your posture and therefore your overall well-being – by experiencing relief from pain and stiffness. With BLACKROLL® it is possible to perform exercises that aim at balance work as well which stabilise and further mobilise your body. To achieve this, BLACKROLL® produces various roll-out tools to work with, using your own body weight and strength to prepare and regenerate the muscular system and improve the blood circulation. Improving blood circulation will not only get you warmed but it will improve oxygen and nutrient rich blood to flow and can help benefit the heart and the body's muscles and arteries.

Your skin, which reflects your energy level and health, will benefit as well since increased blood circulation will fasten the removal of metabolic wastes and toxins from your cells. In short: it will help you look and feel more healthy.

Why use BLACKROLL®?

✓  Significantly increase the flexibility, mobility and performance of your muscular system

✓  Prevent muscle pain and avoid typical injuries and muscle damage that occur from overuse 

✓  Specifically target regeneration of the muscles and increase blood circulation

✓  Improving poor posture by balance work and strengthening your core

✓  Stimulate more nutrient-rich blood to circulate, soothing your skin’s appearance and reducing cellulite

✓  BLACKROLL® material is waterproof, lightweight (150 g, standard version) compact and easy to clean. It easily travels

    with you

✓  BLACKROLL® is produced energy efficiently in Germany, is 100 % free of chemicals and 100 % recyclable

✓  With only little effort BLACKROLL® will actively contribute to your fitness, performance and well-being

     pain and prevent typical (sports-) injuries.

Try BLACKROLL® yourself, and notice how your fitness, performance and overall well-being improve with just little effort.

Let's get you rocking and rolling.

FASCIA-NATED by fascia!

1. Fascia: The Analogy of a Sponge

Comparing the fascia to the function of a sponge may help you wrap your head around the function of our connective tissue. The fascia is our connective tissue, surrounding our every muscle, bone, nerves, organs, joints - and connecting and supporting all of our bodily content, and is a tensional FLUID system. When we compare our fascia to a sponge, it's fairly easy to understand why fascia are important to take care of:  Juicy fascia is happy fascia! "When a sponge dries out it becomes brittle and hard. It can easily be broken with only a little force because of how crispy it has become. However, when a sponge is wet and well hydrated it gets springy and resilient. You can crush it into a little ball and it bounces back. You can wring it and twist it, but it is difficult to break. Once we understand that we’re like that on the inside, keeping our fascia hydrated takes on more importance. Our mobility, integrity, and resilience are determined in large part by how well hydrated our fascia is. In fact, what we call “stretching a muscle” is actually the fibers of the connective tissue (collagen) gliding along one another on the mucous-y proteins called glycosaminoglycans (GAGs for short).  GAGs, depending on their chemistry, can glue layers together when water is absent, or allow them to skate and slide on one another when hydrated. This is one of the reasons why most injuries are fascial. If we get “dried out” we are more brittle and are at much greater risk for erosion, a tear, or a rupture." source: Breaking Muscle (author: Brooke Thomas). Hydrating the fascia is done by moving your body in all angles it is made to be moved in and massage of the fascial tissue, with the help of the BLACKROLL® tools. Reason enough to go and get your rolling on, right now! Want to learn more about fascia and the importance of hydrating this tissue? Watch this short clip by Tom Myers (body worker/author of Anatomy Trains).

Rock and roll! BLACKROLL® 2. Fascia: ALL IS CONNECTED!

When we compare our fascia to the fibres of a wool sweater, spreading from the back of our heads all the way to our toes tips, it is much easier to comprehend why we can experience pain in one part of our body or in a particular muscle, while the actual tension is located somewhere else in the body. Have a look at the image below.

Also dubbed 'the internal architecture of the body' fascia is connected all the way throughout the body. So if your fascia behaves like your grandma's hand-knitted Christmas sweater, once a pull has found its way into the bottom part of your sweater, the tear can easily make its way up to the very top.  When we pull the fascia on one end it will tug the fascia throughout the whole chain and can be felt on another end as a result of compensating the tension in the one end.  Take knee pain, for example. Imagine that your left knee has adhesions in it; it hurts because of a slight trauma which has not been looked after. What can happen is that you start to compensate the joint by turning it slightly inward. The fascia will begin to turn inward too, creating a diagonal pull, all the way up to the right shoulder. It could also be felt in the hip, or the ankle. Fascia has many directions in which it can be pulled. 

Plantar Fascia Why is it that we experience more freedom of movement in our legs and even our back after only rolling our feet for a few minutes (on the MINI roll, for instance)? Well, now you have your answer. You plantar fascia (underneath the feet) is linked to the deeper calf muscles (which is linked by fascia to the hamstrings, the hips, the back, ... and so forth). When we roll, tensions are diminished, creating a flow of fluid; moisturising the fascia of the calf muscles, hamstring, hips... creating more flexibility, like a wave.  Fascia is all about the anatomy of connection!