Gaiam Restore Muscle Therapy Foam Roller 18" w/ DVD

I choose this item after reading the reviews. My brother in law has used a roller before and highly recommended it. It really works good on the back, but the only thing I wished, was that I had ordered the 36" roller. You are somewhat limited on things you can do with the neck and back because of the size. But I can honestly say that I have worked with this and found several ways to work it on certain sides. I can tell you that what I do like about this item is the comfort. It seems very solid, but not so hard that you can't hardly roll on it. I do feel confident that this purchase was still a good one, as I am finding out daily it is useful. It stays in my living room, on the floor, and that's the first thing I use when I get up, and come home from work! It's also a great price to pay when it's helping rid the pain in my back.

I bought this for my wife to use on her sore back. it works as expected, and it even includes a dvd with some examples of stretches and exercises. personally, i do not care for the DVD included since it has some strange music and weird guy doing some awkward poses for the camera. instead, we just looked up exercises on youtube for her back and those work well.about 6 months after use, a small permanent dent has occurred on one section of the roller. it must be due to overuse or too much weight on that one section. i thought it would pop back after non-use for a while, but it still has not and is just dented in. i guess just keep in mind not to put too much weight or pressure on one small area of the roller, otherwise it will be dented as it did for ours.

This roller was not the same roller that the guy used in the DVD. The roller that was used in the DVD was much longer. One of the exercises he did in the DVD would not work with the shorter Gaiam roller, and I was unable to do that one exercise. I definitely feel that this roller is not long enough and because of that, it's much harder to do the exercises because you can end up falling off. If you manage to stay on the Gaiam foam roller, then you can get some positive results. I just feel that it's very misleading that they give you a different length roller to the one used in the DVD. I will keep trying to use this roller, but I am pretty positive that I will try to find the same roller that he used in the DVD so that I can do everything that he does.

This is magic from heaven. I'm about 6 months postpartum and like many women gained some weight. We don't have the money for massages and adjustments right now like I was accustomed to before baby and I found I was in constant pain from my hips back and neck for a myriad of different reasons. This literally adjusts my hips, sacrum and tailbone and helps align my middle and upper back. I've woken up in tremendous pain from sleeping like a pretzel from co sleeping and BF'ing and a half hour on this and so much of the muscle tightness opens up. I used to dance (freestyle/contemporary) and I can't believe I didn't know about these rollers! I would highly recommend this one of you need high pressure massages. It's very dense and doesn't give very much. Seriously this thing is awesome! And it comes with a dvd to show you how to use it!

I purchased this product after purchasing the travel version of Gaiam's foam roller. For me personally, I have seriously knotted muscles in my back, shoulders and neck areas and can tolerate extreme pain (would say 4.5 on a scale of 5), and have to say that this particular product does not meet my needs. I would definitely recommend it for those that do not have a high degree of pain tolerance as the foam does give a bit (3 out of 5 on firmness, 5 being a rigid foam with little to no cushion).

I expected to have no problems with this roller after reading the reviews. I tried doing the exercises shown on the included DVD. I found that after about 2 minutes of using the roller, it had crunched up enough that it was no longer round. Therefore when doing the any of the IT band or exercises involving using the roller from the hip area to the knee area, I found it impossible to get the roller to roll. What I ended up doing was using my muscles to drag the roller on the floor since it wouldn't roll. I used my friends roller which was different than this one, and I found that I could do all of the exercises perfectly. Maybe this roller was just defective, but it didn't work for me. I had to return it.

I used this for rehab after a knee injury and it is pretty deformed now. I was rolling glutes, IT bands, calves, and hamstrings. I used it almost daily for two weeks and it is not the same cylindrical shape anymore; it looks more like an hour glass now. It definitely works though. I enjoyed the softness of the material, but the softness is also it's downfall. I recommend it if you are just loosening muscles lightly, but if you are doing sports therapy this one will not hold up well.

Foam rollers are gifts from above. I have a scoliosis and this has helped me relax my muscles a lot. I look forward to using it. My only complaint is that that the foam roller does not keep its shape --- it has compressed in the middle. I'm not too happy with that. It is still usable, though.