Making a Roller

I promised to show you how to make your own roller. Here are a few ideas.

Sorry, pictures seem distorted coming over from the camera.  I gathered these items to give you ideas as to what to use. You might come up with something better. Old t-shirts, refrigerator liner foam, scrap PVC pipes either 2" or 4", duct tape or electrical tape. The black one at the top is a small roller that fits easily into the gym bag. It is made from 4" PVC 6"s long, covered with some of the refrigerator foam liner (green) and then electrical tape. (The duct tape was missing that day- hmmm, 3 boys in the house. I don't wonder why it was missing.)

For the one I'm making tonight. I folded the old towel in half lengthwise. Taped one end to the longer PVC pipe. Rolled it up tight and taped it off in three spots. I have previously done this with a larger beach towel and folded it more on one end. It made it thicker on one end of the roller. The sprinters liked having the two thicknesses on one roller. After the towel, I rolled the rest of the refrigerator liner foam onto the roller, taping it at the start of the roll and then again at the end. Once it is anchored I used long strips, overlapping, from one end to the other. The picture shows the extra 3 inches of tape on the end. This is pulled tight and anchored into the inside of the PVC.

After the tape is added all the way around, the roller is ready for use. Our 800m runner prefers to use 4" PVC pipe with just a layer of duct tape around it. He likes his roller firm.

Here are the two that I will be using. A 6 inch and a 15 inch roller made from extra items at home.

The silver one will roll everything from the neck down (feels like the chiropractor's rolling table), the black one I use to concentrate on the I T bands and thighs when elsewhere. I like having the duct tape completely covering the roller so dust can easily be wiped off.
Our weather is stormy tonight and through tomorrow, so I'm not sure what workout I'll get to do.
Coming this week, I'll be posting the different daily workouts for the track team and touching on items such as dynamic and static stretching - when do you do them?