Review: RumbleRoller Foam Roller

One Liner: If you need to upgrade your foam roller, this is what to move to!

Overview:


Two things come to mind when you look at the RumbleRoller: the first thing, that you think when you open up the package, is, "what have I gotten myself into?" The second thing is what your guests will think when they see it in your living room - "what in the world is that?"

To start with the second question, the RumbleRoller is really a mutant foam roller that is extra-useful. The nubs on it act like little fingers to get into knots and whatever else might be bothering you. They also let you do two really awesome things that you can't really do on a normal foam roller:

1. You can work side-to-side in addition to back-and-forth. If you've never tried this, this is really cool, especially when you start working on your neck (you can't do that with a normal foam roller!) 
2. You can stop in mid-roll and let the nubs work their way into a trigger point.

The above points really do a lot to take some use out of your TheraCane. They also combine to make the RumbleRoller a lot of fun to use. I get a lot more use out of this than I did from my normal foam roller. 

About firmness - I debated the relative merits of the black (extra-firm) and the blue ("original density"). Having no clue about the difference and not knowing where to find one locally to try out, I decided that I'd be just as well to get the blue one. And I'm glad I did - the blue version is just about as dense as I'd feel comfortable with. To be fair, it's great for glutes, shins and my back - things that a normal foam roller just wasn't working well for. Then again, despite the control you have over the pressure, I think it might be a bit too harsh for my IT bands.

And that's an important thing to note: with a normal foam roller, I could get good use out of it for a couple things - namely the IT band and maybe something else if it was particularly tender. The RumbleRoller gets a lot deeper into things that you might not have realized that you could get to (like glutes).

This hasn't replaced the other two parts of the get-well triumvirate (TheraCane and tennis balls), but it has become the primary device I use.

The Good:

• Very sturdy construction - I've only had this for a couple months, so can't comment on the manufacture's claims of it lasting basically forever, but I believe it
• The nubs are really excellent at digging into trigger points that you might have missed before using a normal roller
• One interesting property of the nubs is that they allow you to move not only up and down but side to side too - allowing you to really dig in where you need it

The Bad:

• Honestly, the only thing that I can think of is it attracts dust like crazy
• May be a bit too harsh for beginners

Recommendation: Once you've learned your way around what is good-ouch and bad-ouch, and your current foam roller ain't doing it for you anymore, I think the RumbleRoller will be a welcome addition to you setup.

Remember: Wrap Your Hands (especially when using MMA gloves)

by Mike

I'll spare you the site of my chewed-up paws, but I should like to remind everyone to wrap your hands when using the heavy bags.

This is especially true when you're using MMA gloves that have cutouts for your individual fingers - not only do you have to worry about cutting up your knuckles, but you also have to keep in mind the possibility of ripping the webbing between your fingers.

Having a nice layer of cloth between your tender, babylike skin and a shifting layers of persperation-wicking material that's cut just a little too big (so you can put handwraps underneath of course) makes all the difference....