Annabel Rivkin rolls over for her GatorTail

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Here's what Annabel Rivkin from ES Magazine had to say about the GatorTail.

A couple of weeks ago I put my back out. That makes me sound 150 years old. It made me feel 150, too. Listen, I don’t know if I actually ‘put it out’ because what does that even mean and who has time or money for an osteopath/chiropractor/charlatan?

Anyway, this minor injury started on one side of my lower back and migrated down my leg in a combination of numb and twinge. Sciatica? God I HATE talking about back pain. So I didn’t. I was just a notch further along the fury index (I am always somewhere on the fury index – particularly in the car), stapled at all times to a hot-water bottle.

And this is how I came across the GatorTail roller: a kind of new generation gym roller/portable masseuse. Rather elegant and 45cm long (mine is black on the outside and a sort of copper colour on its hollow inside), it is covered in ridges loosely resembling alligator skin. Hence the name. What it provides is a very different experience from those dastardly painful traditional gym rollers that people try to persuade you to stretch on but only really serve to make you cry.

This textured roller is both more forgiving and more effective by delivering targeted pressure-point muscle relief. It was the only thing that worked through my pathetic little injury. But it’s also highly preventative because it encourages the release of toxins. So after stretching at the end of a workout I now have a roll round on my GatorTail . A little intense and highly inelegant. Not to be witnessed by anyone you wish to impress/sleep with/intimidate. But deeply, crunchily satisfying.

Annabel Rivkin - ES MAGAZINE