EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT FOAM ROLLING 😍
A tool of self-massage that has been around since the early 1920s and originally made popular by martial artists, broadway stars and ballet dancers.
The research is quite limited in the area of foam rolling, and even in the studies we do have, measuring muscle soreness is quite subjective i.e. people can rate their DOMS as “sore”, “really sore” or “really really sore” 😳
Some of the claimed benefits of foam rolling are:
1️⃣ Reduced Muscle Soreness: Two groups completed 10x10 squats. The group who used the foam roller AFTER training had less muscle soreness. This held true in a few studies (see above). One study did not find foam rolling any use for DOMS, but this group did 30s sprints instead of squats.
2️⃣ Increased Mobility & Range of Motion (ROM): Seems that foam rolling can increase ROM of a joint for the short term i.e. if you roll your lats before doing lat pull downs you may have increased ROM. Static stretching before a work out has shown to decrease strength however foam rolling did not have any negative affects on performance.
🔵 TIPS:
- Don’t priorities all your time & energy on rolling, focus on your tight areas.
- Don’t replace your dynamic warm up with rolling.
- For increased ROM and generally warming up, do rolling before workout. Perhaps if focus is less DOMS, might help to add to your cool down.
✅To conclude, there is literature to show that rolling can have some positive results, however they are not superior to a good old warm up that involves dynamic stretching.