The Stick

Unfortunately, I became familiar with The Stick after a leg injury. It was my first legitimate injury in my life.  I was out running and tore a muscle in my leg.  After walking around like Frankenstein for a week, I decided it was time for some physical therapy.

The Stick is basically that: a stick. You use it much like a rolling pin to roll out muscles.  When I went to physical therapy, they gave me all kinds of work to do at home.  They suggested I go buy The Stick as a means to do some deep tissue massage on my grastrocnemius in hopes to promote some healing.   Luckily I was familiar with what it was because I had witnessed my husband inflicting pain on his own lower leg muscles with this thing and always wondered what in the heck he was doing.

The Stick website states that The Stick is a revolutionary device used to compress and stretch muscle. It was developed to minimize muscle pain and hit trigger points.  It’s not just a rehabilitation tool, it can be used in an attempt to prevent injury as well.  It’s not exactly comfortable to use, but you do get used to it.  You can decided how much pressure to use so you have some control over how comfortable or uncomfortable it will be.

It’s fairly inexpensive and can be found at running stores, or online at The Stick.  It does do a nice job at allowing you to pinpoint specific locations to massage.  It worked great for my calf injury.  It’s also lightweight and easy to take with you. Mine traveled all over the state of Michigan with me this summer.  It has held up really well and I now use it as a preventative measure, especially after long runs or high intensity workouts.  One thing I would say is that it’s a piece of equipment that probably shouldn’t be shared (although I know of athletic teams that do) because it’s hard to clean.  Overall, I feel it definitely helped in my rehabilitation process.  You might try it out yourself to see if your patients or client could benefit from it.