GST: gorilla stick therapy, advanced version of foam rolling customized for meditators

My version:

GST: gorilla stick therapy

feedback from a friend:

I have done shake and bake for a while now and I am not experiencing any pain from it at 18-20 minutes length.

Q: I wanted to know more about Gorilla Stick Therapy, I have a foam roller and no pvc pipe to go. What's the origin of this technique? and any new discovery with it? I honestly found soaking my feet in hot water to be a good thing so thank you for that <3

A: The origin of GST, beyond what I already wrote in the linked article above? Foam rolling has been around for a while. But if the foam you're using is too soft, it's not going to hit deep spots. PVC pipe will, and because of smaller diameter, you can hit some important areas you can't do with a regular sized foam rollers, such as the ankle and foot being especially important.

Remember the priority principle. The fingers, hands, toes, feet, lower limbs, generally get the least amount of qi circulation, and should get extra attention. I try to spend at least a few minutes rolling with a pvc pipe everyday, and ankles and feet are especially important, because long and frequent sitting meditation cuts off circulation there way more than fingers and hands.

Article today describing some of  the limited scientific study of foam rolling

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/does-foam-rolling-actually-do-any-good?utm_source=pocket-newtab

excerpt:

              Foam rolling was once for professional athletes only. These days it’s hard to walk into a gym without tripping over somebody rolling around on a neoprene tube. Dedicated classes in hip New York gyms are frequented by the likes of Sarah Jessica Parker and Shakira. Forget protein shakers, resistance bands or Fit Bits: foam rollers are this season’s must-have gym accessory.

The rise of foam rollers owes much to the Israeli engineer and physicist Moshé Feldenkrais, whose pioneering work on body movements to improve muscle function became popular in the 1950s. A black belt in judo, Feldenkrais incorporated them into his system for physical improvement when he came across them in the US a couple of decades later.

More recently, the American sports therapist Michael Clark helped introduce these accessories to the general population with his 2001 book, Integrated Training for the New Millennium. The first US patent for a foam roller was filed as recently as 2004.

For the uninitiated, the practice involves applying your own body weight to a foam cylinder, using small repetitive undulating movements to exert pressure on the muscle. The internet is full of guides on how to do this right: YouTube contains over 600,000 videos that match the term; a quick hunt on a search engine returns around 40m hits.