Stick It

I had been meaning to buy The Stick for a while now.

I have a strong love/hate relationship with foam rolling, but don't have the floor space in my condo to dedicate to doing it at home.  While I can (and do) foam roll at the gym, I needed something I could do at home after races and on recovery days.  That's where The Stick came in.

Using The Stick is conceptually similar to foam rolling - you use it to treat sore muscles.  Instead of using gravity and moving your body over a foam roller, you use your upper body strength (or someone else's) to push the stick over your legs/back/wherever.  After regularly using my dad's for a month I knew I needed to get one of my own.

When I saw a booth for The Stick at the Baltimore Running Festival expo, I knew I would be leaving with one.  The woman working the booth was extremely helpful in helping me decide which stick to buy and rolled out my IT bands for me.

I ended up buying the Sprinter Stick.  It's shorter than other sticks, which is perfect for traveling and stowing in the van during relays, but is still one of the firmer sticks.  I didn't want a stick with a lot of "give" to it as I'd have to exert more effort to get the same result.

I used the stick to roll out my calves, quads, and IT bands before the Baltimore Half and have continued doing so since the race.  It has helped a lot with soreness and I love that I can do it at home while I'm watching TV.