The Problem

I spent most of June on the treadmill due to what my doctor and I thought was achilles tendinitis. I wasn’t feeling particularly tight, so I had stopped foam rolling on a regular basis, and since downward dog was pulling on my achilles tendon, yoga had been scratched from the schedule too.

Near the end of the month, I started having incredible pains in my left ankle, seemingly from nowhere. That wasn’t the ankle that had tendinitis in it, and it wasn’t making any sense. It wasn’t just my achilles that hurt either – I was having tightness and pain in both of the sides of my ankle too. I foam rolled for 30 minutes when I got home from work, and found that I was getting relief, but I didn’t feel like a regular tubular foam roller was getting enough precision and pressure to really take care of the problem. Before I went to bed that night, I was scrolling through Instagram and saw Playtri had posted a picture of some medieval torture device that looked like it was exactly what I needed to get the knots out of my legs – The ROLL Recovery R8.

The Solution

The next day, I was walking out of RunOn with the R8. I did an easy 5K on the SMU track and then went home to roll the tar out of my legs. And I did. For about two hours. I watched videos showing me how to get the tight spots rolled out best. The next day, I was beat to hell. My legs were dead. Dead…but loose. And there was no achilles pain.

The Good

I was free! I was so happy to be walking around without being in pain. The fact that I had gotten the majority of the tightness out in one night sitting on the couch instead of over days or weeks spent writhing on the rug, covered in dog hair, made the lack of pain even sweeter.

Now, most people probably don’t suffer from the same calf tightness that I was dealing with. I had added in Strong Lifts twice a week and not doing any sort of stretching after lifting, so my muscles were under serious stress for two months. This may not have been the *cause* of my tendinitis, but was certainly a contributing factor. The ROLL Recovery R8’s spring mechanism is strong enough to deal with two months of muscle stress, though. What I liked most about it was that the handles allowed me to really dig into stubborn knots or to keep the pressure lighter on more sensitive areas. My regular foam roller just doesn’t afford me the luxury to be so precise in my pressure or location.

The Bad(ish)

The downside of the ROLL Recovery R8 over a traditional foam roller is that it’s a little difficult to deal with glutes and hips the way you can with a regular roller. I didn’t throw out my regular roller when I got the R8, though, so I can still get those areas, but it’s a quick three or four exercises instead of a hairy, half hour-long affair now.

The Verdict

If you’re happy with your current foam roller, then at $119, the R8 probably won’t be worth it to you. If you’re tired of squirming around on your floor to roll your legs out, or you find yourself skipping rolling because it’s just too much effort right after your run or right before bed and you don’t like the idea of the stick rollers with handles, then I’d suggest you take a look at the R8. If you’re suffering from tight muscles and cannot get relief from anything less than a sports massage, the ROLL Recovery R8 might just change your life.