OPTP

👉 Check out this creative move that does with her dancers.

🌀 Bands drawing the legs in when facing the barre, then on the turn, outer and inner hip activation.

⚫️ The Black AXIS roller can be used for counterbalance and compression, adding more core and chest activation.

SMART ROLLER

💨 We know that when you soften and move the fascia on the breast bone, the sternum, it helps us down regulate and soften into easier breathing. Try it!

✅ Don’t forget to imagine something special.

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PRO-PODS: Shin Splints Relief

😩 Shin Splints?

👉 Try this! The simple self-massage technique shown here will help relieve tension and tightness within the anterior compartment of the lower leg.

📕 In general, shin splints (medial tibial stress syndrome) develops when muscles and/or bone around the tibia become overworked by repetitive activity (walking, running, etc.).

✅ Rest and self massage are great ways to recover!

🔵 The PRO-PODS (shown here) are excellent release tools capable of working out deep tension.

OPTP PRO-ROLLER

🌀 Creative Foam Roller Exercises

👉 Check out these Pilates-inspired lower body, balance and core exercises using a foam roller.

🟢 These moves are great to break out of a routine that has gotten static. In addition, if one side of the body is unable to work in parallel with the other, these exercises allow for less load on one or both sides of the body. 👍

🎥 .pilates

🟢 Featured Product: PRO-ROLLER

*xercises

Pelvic Pain Kit

🌀 Why are different release tools needed for pelvic pain?

👉 Listen to what Sandra Hilton, PT, DPT, MS, has to say.

📘 Sandra is the author of the new book, Self-Care for Pelvic Pain: A Sensory Integration Toolkit. The book was written for people experiencing groin pain, ge***al pain, or pain while sitting, riding a bike, or having s*x.

✅ This clear, simple guide includes step-by-step sensory integration exercises and guidelines for how to perform them, as well as guidance on how to choose the right sensory integration tool for each technique.

🤸 For people experiencing pelvic pain, this book offers a path toward feeling better by using pleasurable sensation and fun movement to improve the body’s ability to tolerate normal pressures.

🟢 Soft Movement Ball Work

👉 The 12” Soft Movement Ball is great for all sorts of traditional and non-traditional exercise.

✅ There are so many ways to use this versatile tool for core strength, stability and balance. From lying to seated and kneeling to standing, this slightly oversized prop will add unique new challenges to all exercises!

🟢 No Tower? No problem! Use the Soft Movement Ball in place of your small ball during mat work or general stability training.

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⚪️ Foam Roller + Magic Circle

👉 Grab your circle and foam roller! Give these 5 moves a try.

✅ Full body with a focus on centerline connection!

⚪️🔘 Featured Products: Silver AXIS moderate density foam roller and Magic Circle
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🎥 .love.soul

Silver AXIS Foam Roller

⬇️Back Pain + Tightness Rehab

📚 Here are FOUR AWESOME EXERCISES!! Save this for later.

💪🏼 The thoracic spine consists of 12 vertebrae – the largest area when compared to the neck and lower back. It is able to move in all planes of motion. It also helps to facilitate the movement of the arms with its relationship to the shoulder blade, provides a stable base for the neck, and is paired with the ribs to influence breathing. It is such an important area that is often forgotten!

⛹️‍♀️Good movement in the thoracic spine is essential to remain pain-free for sports and modern-day lifestyles. Posture, or the ability to keep a relatively normal thoracic curve, can be easily compromised due to long hours spent at desk jobs, on the internet, studying and certain sports like cycling, leading to negative changes in thoracic posture - decreased mobility and increased tension.

🏋🏻‍♂️This foam roller four exercise routine is a great way to increase the mobility of the back and work towards the goal of better/easier movements!

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⚪️ Featured Product: Silver AXIS moderate density foam roller


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🤸‍♂️ Full Body Mobility Warmup

👉 Grab a foam roller and give this move a try. It’s great for warming up, but also can be added to a mobility routine.

🌀 Foam rolling the quads, calves, IT bands, inner thighs, hamstrings and lats prior to doing this exercise will help tremendously!

⚪️ Featured Product: Silver AXIS moderate density foam roller

💥𝐒𝐡𝐢𝐧 𝐒𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐬💥

📚Medial Tibial Stress Syndrome (MTSS) or ‘shin splints’ describes a repetitive stress injury of the anteromedial shin region. This issue typically causes pain along the middle-distal tibia that is provoked with exertion.

🔎This condition typically involves situations where the body is not able to heal due to excessive loading. Following this logic, the vast majority of MTSS cases can be controlled by managing the stress that is being applied to the system. This could include manipulating these five major variables:

1️⃣Training frequency, volume or intensity
2️⃣Technique/form
3️⃣Equipment (training surface, shoes)
4️⃣Nutrition
5️⃣Resistance training

✅Exercises like those shown in this post from Rehab Science will help reduce pain and improve the musculoskeletal system’s ability to tolerate load.

🌀 Featured Products: Black AXIS firm foam roller and Super Pinky Ball. Get both in the Rehab Science Essentials Kit.
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🔴 Soothing Core Moves 🔴

👉 These combos will mobilize your spine, hips and activate your core awareness.

1️⃣ Cow stretch + hover balance
2️⃣ Quadraped circles
3️⃣ Side lying attitude twists
4️⃣ Mermaid twist extension

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🔴 Featured Product: Soft Gym Overball

💥 ᴄʟɪᴄᴋɪɴɢ sʜᴏᴜʟᴅᴇʀ?

👉 Although hearing audible “clicks” & “pops” in a joint can be worrying… it does 𝐍𝐎𝐓 necessarily mean that there is anything wrong with the underlying structures! 🔐

🌀 Sometimes cavitations, or “pops”, occur simply because there is air in the joint space 🫧

🚨𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄: We always recommend checking with your licensed Physical Therapist or healthcare provider before trying these movements.

✅ If you’re looking to further improve your shoulder stability, here are 3️⃣ activities I love to incorporate in varying planes & positions!

🔹resisted external rotation
🔸wall slides with band
🔹prone rows

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🟢 Featured Product: Sanctband loop resistance band in lime green.

⭐️ Foam Roller Fun

👉 Here are 2 fun and creative foam roller core exercises and 1 dynamic foam roller movement flow.

🎥 .fit.love

🔵⚫️ Featured Products: Black AXIS firm foam roller and PRO-ROLLER

Pain in the Back, Belly or Bottom? Try This!

Persistent pain is a global problem. Too many are in pain for too long and they miss out on work, exercise, or fun. What if there are simple and accessible ways to help people treat their own pain? This webinar explores possibilities of self-treatment for people who can't do therapy or who need portable options for work, home, and travel. Backs, bellies, and bottoms are the focus of purposefully pleasurable self-treatment techniques for pain. Come practice feeling good!

🪑 Sitting all day?

🧐 Are the hips and lower back tight?

👉 This *might* be why. When we sit and melt into our chairs, the front side of the body can become shortened. Upon standing up, this shortness often results in anterior pelvic tilt.

🔵 In order for the body to stand up straight with an anterior tilted pelvis, the low back becomes compressed.

✅ If you’re a sittter, see if rolling out your quads helps to bring balance back to your posture. 👍

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🌀 Foam roller by available at OPTP

Stretch Out Strap

👉 Deep Hip Stretch

✅ This is a great stretch for hip and back tightness. Enhance the stretch by pushing the hips and upper body in opposite directions ↔️

🟢 The Original Stretch Out Strap allows for more leverage and a deeper stretch during this stretch and all other stretches. Give it a try 👍

Ashley DeLeon Pilates Pack

🌀 The PRO-ROLLER Soft is part of the Ashley DeLeon Pilates Pack. The Pack also includes one month FREE to unlimited Membership online studio, full of guided workouts using the Pack that you can do from anywhere 🌎
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✅ The Ashley DeLeon Pilates Pack includes:⁣
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🌀The PRO-ROLLER⁣ Soft
🔵The Soft Gym Overball⁣
💚The Sanctband Resistive Band⁣
💕The Super Pinky Ball⁣
👜The Ashley DeLeon Pilates Tote Bag- exclusive to the Pilates Pack!⁣
🎥1 Month of access to online studio full of over 250 guided workouts for all levels, time lengths and goals! ⁣

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Black AXIS Firm Foam Roller

💥Struggling with Overhead Mobility?

🔑 One common theme with shoulder and back pain is lack of full overhead mobility.

💪🏽 If you are missing full overhead motion, it could be caused by a few different things:

▶️Lat Mobility
▶️Tight joint capsule
▶️Pec Mobility
▶️Limited thoracic spine mobility

…Just to name a few.

👉🏼Need some ideas on how to improve your overhead shoulder mobility? Grab your foam roller and give these two moves from a try!

⚫️ Featured Product: Black AXIS Firm Foam Foller

Soft Movement Ball

🟢 Pelvic Floor Exercises

🌀 The pelvic floor not only relates to continence and core strength, but it also is associated with posture and daily confidence. Having a stable pelvic floor will keep you in the clear of incontinence, help with back and/or sacroiliac joint pain, and help maintain overall health.

✅ Try this mini-sequence and add into your daily movement practice and feel the results.

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🟢 Featured Product: Soft Movement Ball - bigger than a small ball but smaller than a stability ball. Provides ideal support for hundreds of exercises.

Soft Gym Overball

👉 Here is a simple Pilates core workout using the Soft Gym Overball 🟡

✅ Repeat 2-3 times as long as you are not experiencing discomfort:

30 Marches
10 knee stretches
10 Tik toks
10 supported single leg stretch

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Stretch-EZ

🔥 Posterior Chain Stretch

👉 Release tightness in the back, hips, hamstrings and calves with this simple and incredibly effective technique.

✅ Follow the cues and be sure to conduct the stretch on both sides at least twice for about 30 seconds.

🔴 The Stretch-EZ provides leverage for dorsiflexion of the ankle during this stretch. When this action occurs, we increase length of the tissues on the back side of the leg and into the hips 👍

🔵 Pilates on a Foam Roller

👉 Here is some trunk stabilization work show by using her PRO-ROLLER Soft.

✅ This begins with scapular stabilization then moves into a series of core work that targets everything from the ribs to hips around the trunk.

“ᴡʜʏ ᴀʀᴇ ᴍʏ ʜɪᴘ ꜰʟᴇxᴏʀs 𝙖𝙡𝙬𝙖𝙮𝙨 𝙩𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩”?! 💥

This is a question asked regularly — especially from people who spend a lot of time sitting! 🚗🖥

More often than not… a “𝘁𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁” muscle usually indicates a 𝙒𝙀𝘼𝙆 muscle! 🩹

And, if stretching over & over again has only provided 𝙢𝙞𝙣𝙞𝙢𝙖𝙡 𝙤𝙧 𝙩𝙚𝙢𝙥𝙤𝙧𝙖𝙧𝙮 relief…

it might be time to focus more on 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗴𝘁𝗵 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴! 💪

👉 Here are 3️⃣ activities in varying positions through various ranges.

which one is your fav?!

🎥

🌀 Featured Product: Sanctband Loop Band in Lime

🟢 Foam Roller Core and Mobility

👉 Try these exercises individually or link them together to create a fluid movement flow.

✅ These are great to add to a Pilates or general core strength and stability training workout!

🌀 Featured Product: PRO-ROLLER

🎥:

*xercises

Shop Foam Rollers

⚡️Poor Posture and Shoulder Mobility⚡️

🏌🏻‍♀️Posture is about more than standing up straight, it is an important party of your long-term health. We all should make sure that we are holding the body the right way, whether moving or still, to help prevent injuries and/or other health problems. The key to good posture is the position of the spine. The spine has three natural curves - at your neck, midback and low back. Correct posture should maintain these curves, but not increase them.

⛹🏻‍♂️In this video is using some exercises to address shoulder and mid back mobility. Mobility issues that develop can result from several types of activity and/or inactivity. Some of the most common types of issues are impingement, rotator cuff tear, frozen shoulders, and more! It is important to know your limited ROMs and use exercises to help, if you experience pain in these positions - these might not be the exercises for you!

🏋🏻‍♀️Exercises to help improve your strength!
1. Prayer stretch with lift offs
2 Thoracic rotations
3 Thoracic rotations 2nd variation
4 Scapular push ups
5 Shoulder mobility drill
6 Banded external rotation

😍Use these as a warm-up or for those recovery days. If you’re someone who suffers from shoulder instability or shoulder pain, give them a try! These will really help open up the mid back! The Thoracic spine needs some love ❤️

⚪️ Featured Product: Silver AXIS Foam Roller

Emerald Green Textured Balls

🦶 Foot Relief

🔥 Have tightness in the feet? Plantar Fasciitis? General soreness?

🦶 Giving the feet some relief with myofascial release and self massage can help!

👉 Here we have the Franklin Method Emerald Green Textured Balls being used in some excellent release techniques out of the Franklin Method “Happy Feet” book.

PRO-ROLLER Soft

🔥 Thoracic Mobility

✅ Tight back? Give these mobility exercises a try and let us know how they work!

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🔵 Featured Product: PRO-ROLLER Soft

Posture Ball Tissue Release Tool

👉 Tight Glutes?

✅ Try this release technique. It’s great for runners, cyclists, dancers, weightlifters, or anyone who experiences sore hips.

🔥 Use this to enhance recovery and improve mobility.

🌀 Using a larger ball for releasing the hips can get into sore spots a little more than a foam roller, but won’t be as aggressive as a lacrosse ball.

🟢 Featured Tool: 6” Posture Ball

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Shop Holiday Sale - Ends Dec. 31

🎅 Still looking for the best fitness, recovery, Pilates, and physical therapy products?

✅ Our holiday sale is going strong, but it ends December 31st!

🎁 Shop the best equipment for you, your patients and/or your clients at OPTP!

Sacroiliac Books by Deb Riczo, DPT

✅ Having a strong back and arms does not only make life easier, but it is vital for overall well-being.

🧠 The latissimus dorsi muscle is worked in this simple and effective exercise and it is a huge supporter of the back and pelvic girdle and

KEY POINTS:
▶️ Use the color of Sanctband (various resistance) that cause your muscles to fatigue after 8 to 12 reps. Rest ~ 1 minute then repeat 1 to 2 more times.
▶️ Stand with breastbone elevated, in a confident posture, head over shoulders
▶️ Slow exhale just before and as you pull down, tensioning your stomach muscles inward with the movement
▶️ Pull shoulder blades back and down as you bring your arms to your sides and even behind you
▶️ 3 to 4 times/week

📚 Learn more in books by Riczo Health Education “Back & Pelvic Girdle Pain in Pregnancy & Postpartum!” and “Sacroiliac Pain”.

Soft Gym Overball

Strengthen your back! 🦢🩰💪🏼

👉 Here is an extension series to work on your spinal extension, shoulder stability, core engagement and more.

1️⃣ Swan Press Up + Swimming
2️⃣ Swan Roll + Pulses
3️⃣ Swan Roll
4️⃣ Single Arm Swan Roll

🔴 Featured Product - Soft Gym Overball

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OPTP PRO-ROLLER

🔵 The Upper Traps are notoriously achy but you can work on them yourself with your foam roller! This move is nuanced and takes practice, but it’s totally worth it.

✅ Try it without lifting the hips first, then, for a deeper release, lift the hips.

👉 Be sure to use a soft or moderate density roller, like our PRO-ROLLER Soft or PRO-ROLLER (shown here by )

McKenzie Lumbar Supports

👉 Have you ever used a McKenzie lumbar support?

🔥 Crafted from the finest materials, the new McKenzie Signature Series of lumbar rolls and supports feature a warm and luxurious suede-type fabric, complete with embroidery detail and removable, adjustable straps. Convenient to transport and easy to secure to almost any chair, use these supports at home, in the car, in the office, or anywhere you sit for long periods of time.

McKenzie Method

👉 Have you tried these foam rollers? Let us know your thoughts below.

🎥 Thanks to for the video content!

🔵 The PRO-ROLLER Soft is ideal for use as a stability prop in Pilates and/or a more gentle myofascial release experience.

🟣 The SMARTROLLER is wonderful tool for somatic education and motor learning. It’s unique shape allows for endless exercises that can be progressed or regressed by turning the roller to the opposite side.

👉 Have you felt the benefits of Pilates?

👇 Drop a line below with how Pilates changed things for you.
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🟡 Featured Product: Soft Gym Overball
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Hip Mobility Tools

👉 Ideas for tight hips 👇

🤕When it comes to mobility training, the hips should be a primary area of focus. There’s good reason for that: it’s one of our ball-and-socket joints in the body, and thus is primed for mobility by design. For most of us, the ability to adequately use our hips leaves a lot left to be desired, and unfortunately, a lack of adequate movement in the hip joint can be a precursor to lower back pain, knee pain, and increased susceptibility to injury, particularly during athletic endeavours.

⛹🏻‍♂️Hip mobility is essential to the proper full functioning of the hip joint. While the hip joint is meant to be more stable and less mobile than the shoulder joint, it can still be extremely limiting and even harmful if the hip joint lacks its full mobility. There are many structures (15 muscles, 3 major ligaments, etc) that cross the hip joint And move it or stabilize it. Therefore, it is a complex joint that needs to be operating at its fullest in order to create peak athletic performance and prevent injury.

🏌🏻‍♀️So if you are suffering from tight hips from sitting at work or driving back home, these targeted exercises can help. They can help with tight hips, hip pain, hip flexor tightness, glute tightness, back pain and back tightness! Work towards unlocking your hip flexors and low back pain!

🏋🏻‍♀️EXERCISES:
1. Standing hip CARs 2. 90/90 hip stretch
3. 90/90 hip thrusts 4. Banded Hip flexor march

⚪️ Featured Product: Silver AXIS foam roller

🎥 Content by

hip pain, hip tightness, back pain, low back pain, low back numbness, leg numbness, sharp pain, pain down the leg, hip flexors, flexors tightness, quad tightness, leg pain, knee pain