At some point you are going to find yourself far away from home looking to recover from either a workout, or a hard fought race. But that big, amazing foam roller that you are dying to use is sitting in your living room wondering where you are. For those times may we introduce the Trigger Point Grid Mini.

Foam Rollers

However before we dive into the Mini, for those that haven’t had the opportunity to use a Foam Roller, let us first recommend that before you use one for the first time you take a few minutes to read up on the best exercises. Like your workouts, it is easy to spend a large deal of time on a roller accomplishing nothing. Trigger Point offers a number of bundles that include a Grid with a book or guide that can help you make the most of your purchase. Additionally every Grid Mini comes with a hang tag that has a number of exercises you can accomplish with the Mini.

If you are looking for a guide that is a little more on the “free” side we here at AG are fans of Bicycling.com’s – Roll out the Kinks guide. Inside you will find a number of quick exercise you can do with your Grid or just about any foam roller.

The Grid

Many of you are hopefully familiar with the original Trigger Point Grid and Grid 2.0. If not then take a moment to check them out. Trigger Point has created a truly unique foam roller with its Grid series. Each Grid, whether it is the Original, 2.0, or Mini is built from EVA foam wrapped around an inner core. This construction technique gives the Grid its durability while using far less foam than its competitors, the end result is a product specifically built to take a beating and keep on ticking. Unlike many of the rollers you will find, this one is not going to start to lose form after repeated use.

The Grid, Grid 2.0, and Mini contain multiple density zones to help target the affected regions; medium and tubular, high and firm, and low and flat (though the Mini loses out on the medium\tubular areas). Depending on your needs at that moment, you will be sure to find a specific density zone to sooth even the harshest of issues. Even better, you can use the firm zone to handle one area, and switch to the flat zone for another. This kind of versatility makes the Trigger Point Grid line such a great product.

The Mini

The standard Grid measures in at 13” long (and the 2.0 doubles that at 26”), neither of which are exactly suitcase or tri bag friendly. This is where the Mini comes in, measuring in at only 5” tall and a 5.5” diameter, this is the foam roller you can pack in your carry on suitcase, or due to its hollow design you can even loop it through the straps of your bag.

We appreciated most that we could loop the Mini through the straps of our tri bag and have it with us at the race site. So many times we have finished a race and wanted to get our stretch on right there in transition as we were packing up, with the Mini we could finally do that. We also really appreciated that we could bring this on the plane with us. Like many of our readers, we here at AeroGeeks are forced to travel on a regular basis, and because of this we are no strangers to foreign city streets and hotel pools. Having the Mini meant that we could stretch out after a good workout or even just work out the kinks caused by those seats in coach (unfortunately AG doesn’t fly us First Class).

The one unfortunate issue with the Mini is a byproduct of its size – there are just some exercises you cannot do with the mini. For the majority of users, anything that requires you to have both legs or your back on the mini is going to be extremely difficult. We had no problem doing individual calf, hamstring, or quad workouts, but back workouts just were not possible. Also TP recommends that you do not attempt to stand on the mini, being that it was not designed for these specific types of pressures. But these were tradeoffs we could live with. You truly have no idea what jealousy looks like until you grab your Mini out and get a good stretch in before you have to get on top of the podium.

Final Thoughts

We here at AeroGeeks are huge fans of the products that help us prevent injury and recover quicker. This is why we love the Grid Mini as much as we do; it allows us to take injury prevention on the road with us. For anyone looking to keep injury time to a minimum, this is a product that will help ensure you are good to go following the most intense of workouts no matter how near or far you are from your home.