Roll Recovery R8 a Masochistic Love Story between a man and his imaginary American Gladiator

 This is the story of how I fell in love with 

"Zap" 

my Roll Recovery R8

About 5 years ago I had my first battle with Iliotibial Band Syndrome. (a tight IT Band)  Back then there was no such thing as the Roll Recovery R8. 

 So I bought The Stick. I don't think it's a bad product but the massage was way too superficial, partly on account of my wimpy upper body strength. No matter how much a massaged my IT band, it did not get any better and now my arms and shoulders needed  massage as well

  So I got foam roller.  Meet
"Rollonya"  

Almost everyday for the next few months we rolled on the floor together.  At first I  shrieked like a little girl. I never fanciest myself to be much of masochist. Pain is not somthing I usually enjoy. But neither is injury.  I knew the pain was good for me and it became addicting for awhile Rolonya and I had a good thing going.

But overtime as I healed an got back into running again, I got lazy and our time spent on the floor together diminished. I was too tired for are daily romp.  I was no longer  injured I had a hard time convincing myself  to be proactive.

We tried to spice things up but are affair was over except for the occasional one night stand.  

I thought Maybe I needed somthing more intense?

So I bought "The Grid"  which by all means is a pretty awesome foam roller 

(other than being very hard to draw on)

BUT

It suffers from the 2 problems that all foam rollers suffer from.

1.  When I am trying to recover from a hard workout I do not have the energy to provide my own resistance

2. It requires quite a bit of room to roll around on.

The solution was simple?

I needed my own personal American Gladiator to massage me

I needed 

"ZAP"

Why Zap?

Because "Nitro" is a prick!

Owning my own American Gladiator would be pretty expensive. Plus if you have ever seen me without my shirt on It's pretty obvious I have no clue where to buy the steroids needed to feed them

So I got the next best thing

"Roll Recovery R8"

It turns out I got "ZAP"  after all.  It's pretty clear to me how they came up with design.

Photo by Stan Evans

I recently ran across the United States and I brought "Zap" with me.
 My body would be tested like never before! 

Each day I ran my ass off and had little energy left to do anything else besides drink a beer. 

Thankfully the Roll Recovery R8 is spring loaded providing almost all of its own resistance. 

It turns out all that beer drinking gave me just enough arm strength to use ZAP.

Plus I could use it anywhere.

With each passing day my love for ZAP grew.  I'm not the possessive type.

So I shared her with many friends along the way and the praise was universal.

And so were the grimaces.
(Caution video contains a foul mouthed Texan, watcher beware)


Epilogue:
ZAP and I still are together.  Although I am done with my transcontinental run I still use her everyday for at least 5 to 10 minutes.  She sits next to the couch always there for me. The Roll Recovery R8 provides a great deep tissue massage with little effort. I don't recommend throwing way your foam roller but a foam roller that isn't being used will not help you.  The R8 takes almost no effort to use and is perfect the lazy endurance athlete like myself.

Save your energy for your workout
and
use the R8 to Recover.

I love you ZAP! 
Ha Ha 
:)