Welcome to the twelfth day of our 12-Day Holiday Gift Guide! Join us daily for gifts we’re obsessing over, and an exclusive offer to shop for the season…
Gift the only home workout we swear by. Under normal conditions, we’re out boxing, hiking and hitting classses at our favorite yoga studios. But this holiday season — and the season to follow — are different and we’re finding ways to stay flexible, strong, and feeling our best while at home.
We’re rolling into the holiday season with Lauren Roxburgh’s Aligned Life Foam Rolling Set as a part of TCM 12 Days of Holiday Gifts. Lauren’s simple, but profound method is one of the most remarkable things happening in fitness right now and it all comes down to one newly discovered ‘body part’: the fascia.
More about the fascia below.
Lauren Roxburgh is a board certified Structural Integration practitioner with a degree in Nutrition and Exercise Physiology. Certified as a personal trainer and in Classical Pilates, she has most famously been dubbed the ‘Body Whisperer’ by publications like Goop and anyone lucky enough to have had a one-on-one session with her (including clients like LeBron James, Emmy Rossum and Molly Sims).
The core of Lauren’s work is about foam rolling for long, lean muscles and hydrated, aligned fascia — that mystery body part we keep referring to. Most of us didn’t grow up learning about ‘fascia’ in anatomy class, but the truth is that this delicate system just beneath our skin is key for our overall health and bears secrets to the mind-body connection so many of us are keen to learn more about.
An in-person session with Lauren (which is impossible to book, by the way) is a kin to seeing a therapist, pilates instructor and chiropractor all in one. The experience is profound and our team — plus everyone we’ve ever spoken with on the topic — says they’ve cried in their first sessions with Lo.
For those of you still wondering what fascia is: Fascia is the thin layer of connective tissue that keeps all of your organs, blood vessels, bones, nerve fibers, and muscles in one place. Crazily enough, it is almost as sensitive, nerve-wise, as your skin. As fascia becomes stiff and dehydrated, it can cause misalignment throughout our bodies causing tightness, stiffness, stagnation and even pain. Lauren’s foam rolling techniques are designed to rehydrate the fascia and get the body aligned, fluid and strong head-to-toe.
THE GIFT: Lauren Roxburgh’s Aligned Life Foam Rolling Set
The Aligned Life Foam Rolling Set was developed by Lauren to provide simple tools for anyone around the world who wants to access her expertise. Don’t be fooled: a simple foam roller might not look like a treadmill or spin bike, but this kit will get you fit and, even better, address chronic aches, bad posture and poor circulation. We’re obsessed and, although we know that some readers may already be into Lo’s program, we couldn’t recommend it more highly as a gift this holiday season for anyone and everyone living life at home!
Let’s break it down (that’s a fascia joke)…
Here are all the tools included in Lo’s Aligned Life Foam Rolling Set. TCM Reader’s will also get free 30 day access to Lauren’s online classes, plus a deal on her Bellicon rebounder…
The Aligned Roller This foam roller will be your new at-home essential. With the perfect amount of firmness and a subtle texture, the Aligned Roller is designed to elongate muscles, tone the body and provide you with a regenerative massage. Lauren will teach you to use the foam roller for improving blood circulation throughout fascia, skin, muscles and joints. When you’re not using it to release years of tension and emotional buildup (you’ll understand once you start the program), the roller tucks away far more discretely than a workout bike! We keep the roller lying around to massage out tension during Netflix binges and beyond.
The Travel-size Roller This kit also comes with a smaller roller that, while perfect for travel when needed, also serves to get into tight areas that are better served by a smaller roller. This additional roller is also great to ‘allow’ your significant other to steal so they can get in on the results you’re experiencing on Lo’s program!
the Mini Infinity Roll The Mini Infinity Roll is definitely not like anything you’ve seen before. Small, portable, and targeted, this roller is ideal for deep tissue self-massage to help relieve pain in tight muscles in hard-to-reach places. The roller’s most unique feature is its raised, circular bumps aid that in lymphatic drainage and decreasing inflammation.
Aligned Domes The Aligned Domes are a GO-TO in the gyrotonics world. Whether performing exercises on them to achieve alignment and balance, or to help release muscle tightness (even in your feet), keep these domes where you can see ‘em, so you can pop on and off of them throughout the day. Lauren has a ton of tutorials on how to use the Domes while performing a variety of balance movements and, surprisingly, to help calm the nervous system.
Body Sphere You might be wondering how a ball could possibly massage the muscles or unlock the fascia. You’re going to have to take our word for it. The Body Sphere is like a body chameleon that provides the perfect mix between pleasure and pain as it helps to build core strength, improve posture, and release stress build-up during specific movement. It can even support better digestion Does that make you a fascia dom? Kinda!
Tote Bag All of these alignment goodies are kept together in a cute, lightweight canvas tote.
WHY WE’RE OBSESSED: A foam roller doesn’t look as challenging as a big piece of gym equipment at first glance, but just one online session with Lauren will show you otherwise. Learning to roll with Lauren will teach you more about how your body works than few other fitness experiences and equip you with understanding about how to care for yourself for life.
Whether you’re looking to correct an injury, deal with terrible 2020 WFH posture, or just get back into some kind of healthy movement, rolling with Lauren is an experience you have to feel to understand.
Because rolling exercises release our fascia, these workouts can also have a profound effect on our sense of emotional well-being. We finish sessions with Lo mentally lighter, emotionally empowered, and physically stronger.
WHY IT MADE THE GIFT GUIDE: Along with this killer gift set for at-home fitness, Lauren is offering a 30-day free trial to try out an Aligned Life video subscription when you enter ALIGNEDLIFE at checkout. All you need is 20 minutes a day to use the foam roller and other tools in her workouts.
Want to dive deep on all this fascia business? Lauren’s book, The Power Source, will break it all down for you. True Blood actress, Melissa Rauch calls it her “body bible.” Honestly, we’ve read it a few times and always learn something new.
With all of us working from home and sitting for one million hours a day, this set is the PERFECT breakaway when it’s 3pm and you’re staring at your email, wondering how you’ll ever type, “Sounds good. Thanks for circling back.”
Once you begin dabbling in Lauren’s Aligned Life protocol, you’re going to become obsessed with everything she does. We know because it happened to our entire team.
P.S. In case we forget to mention, Lo also has her very own Lo Rox Rebounder, which is only the biggest biohacking trend and approved by Vogue. Get the same high you did as a kid jumping on a trampoline, while tightening your core and energizing your lymphatic system. You currently get $100 off automatically at checkout.
As we roll into 2021, few things are certain, but keeping our bodies strong and able is a non-negotiable. Gift yourself (or your very stubborn [insert anyone who slouches at their computer]) the gift of better posture, alignment, strength, and a better quality of life.
