foam rollers, their uses and effectiveness

Earlier this week I was feeling sore after a few consecutive days of workouts and long days of refereeing basketball. To combat this I used my roller and a small massage ball with little dimples on it. As I was doing this I realised that I use this kind of “treatment” for recovery relatively often and I don’t even know that much surrounding the science behind how it works to make me feel better and if it is actually effective.

So I decided to find some research around it and the analyse what it all might mean, and this is the result of that.

First of all, I’ll share what I have learnt about foam rolling in classes and just from health professionals. The main benefits which have been shared with me are that when you foam roll as a part of warm up for training it increases motor neuron excitability and stimulation for optimal performance. As part of cool down rolling will relax muscles while stimulating blood flow which has a variety of flow on benefits such as decreasing venous pooling and increased removal of harmful by-products produced through exercise such as lactic acid.

The mechanism of how rolling reduces pain and increases performance is called self-myofascial release. In a study completed by Healey, Hatfield, Blanpied, Dorfman and Riebe (2014), it is explained that massage has been used “for a number of centuries” to prevent the fascia scar tissue over time which is created by the microtrauma occurring in our muscles during exercise. This essentially means that when we exercise, our muscles actually break down and the pain or soreness is caused by the inflammatory response which in turn creates the fascia scar tissue. What rolling does to reduce the effects of this is called myofascial release and this treats restrictions in the fascia.

In this same study, Healey, Hatfield, Blanpied, Dorfman and Riebe (2014) analysed if the benefits of foam rolling were due to these self-myofascial release benefits or if planking in warm-up would produce much of the same benefits both during and after performance. The logic behind this is that part of the benefit of using rollers in warm-up has to do with the isometric positions which are held in rolling having a similar method to planking. They found in their study however that when athletes rolled in their warm-up compared to planking, they had significantly less pain after the exercise, however the performance of the athletes in the athletic tests was not significant. This shows that according to this study, rolling and self-myofascial release produces no major benefits to performance as part of a warm-up however it can assist in reducing pain and thus recovery time after exercise.

This is supported by a study completed by Behara, and Jacobson (2017) which found that the only significant difference in performance which was found after rolling before testing was in hip flexibility however this improvement was found to be similar to that of dynamic stretching.

These studies show that rolling before exercise in order to improve performance is not effective as performance gains are negligible. This being said, rollers can still be used pre-exercise in order to stimulate muscles just the same as exercises such as planks, wall sits and even dynamic movements used to activate muscles.
The other goal of the use of rollers however is to improve recovery and reduce soreness.

Pearcy et al. (2015) speculated that the enhancements of post-exercise recovery gained from rolling may be due to a number of factors including; increased levels of circulating neutrophil (which heal the damaged tissue), new mitochondria possibly being formed as well as less active heat shock proteins and immune cytokines which reduce cellular stress and inflammation. These mechanisms would all work to increase the speed of recovery and also reduce the inflammation caused by exercise. This can be beneficial to the athlete as they can then experience less soreness post exercise as well as allowing them to be able to perform and train sooner after exercise to the best of their ability.

This was supported by the findings of Byrne et al. (2004) who showed that Exercise-Induced muscle damage can significantly affect performance and training and not allow athletes to as easily reach their optimal training intensity. This works via a number of factors reducing muscle function. The meta-analysis completed by Wiewelhove et al. (2019) analyses various studies showing that the use of foam rollers can significantly reduce the effects of muscle soreness post exercise when used after completion of this exercise.

One other finding to note was that between the studies which were compared by Wiewelhove et al. (2019), traditional cylindrical foam rollers were more effective than the roller massagers/sticks. This means that while these alternatives may be more portable and convenient, they may not have as significant of an effect both pre and post exercise. Personally however, I believe that the convenience still gives them a place to provide some therapy where it may be less practical to have the full roller.

Summary:

In summary I have found that while foam rolling may not work to increase performance, it can be very effective in reducing the effects of muscle soreness and thus allow athletes to recover quicker have less pain post exercise competition. This means that it should be used optimally after exercise. If used prior to exercise then this may be beneficial in the same way other muscle activating, isometric exercises such as planks are. Thus it can be used here, however it should be considered that there may be more appropriate ways to achieve these benefits depending on the sport/training goals.

Foam rolling has been shown to be very effective in the major muscles in the legs however essentially it could be used anywhere you would massage to reduce muscle fatigue otherwise. There are a variety of trustworthy sources on the internet which show different foam rolling routines and these can focus on different muscle groups which can be used depending on the requirements of your own training or sport.

I would like to add that the research on rolling and self-myofascial release is not yet to the point, to my understanding, where we can conclusively say how much of an impact it can have on a variety of factors. However, in saying this, it is always important to consider what you personally enjoy and feel good about. If you, like myself, enjoy rolling and feel like it gives you genuine benefit, even is this might be psychological, I don’t see an issue with you using it as a tool. This is as long as there aren’t any proven harms occurring from it, which as you have read, to my understanding, there aren’t any.

So that was my first post on this blog, I hope to produce more content here in the future regarding a variety of topics which interest me both fitness related and otherwise. For now though, thanks for reading!

Con Economou

**Research used in this post was the work of others and not my own findings.

Resources used:

Behara, B., & Jacobson, B. H. (2017). Acute effects of deep tissue foam rolling and dynamic stretching on muscular strength, power, and flexibility in division I linemen. The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, 31(4), 888-892.

Byrne, C., Twist, C., & Eston, R. (2004). Neuromuscular function after exercise-induced muscle damage. Sports medicine, 34(1), 49-69.

Healey, K. C., Hatfield, D. L., Blanpied, P., Dorfman, L. R., & Riebe, D. (2014). The effects of myofascial release with foam rolling on performance. The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, 28(1), 61-68.

Pearcey, G. E., Bradbury-Squires, D. J., Kawamoto, J. E., Drinkwater, E. J., Behm, D. G., & Button, D. C. (2015). Foam rolling for delayed-onset muscle soreness and recovery of dynamic performance measures. Journal of athletic training, 50(1), 5-13.

Wiewelhove, T., Döweling, A., Schneider, C., Hottenrott, L., Meyer, T., Kellmann, M., ... & Ferrauti, A. (2019). A meta-analysis of the effects of foam rolling on performance and recovery. Frontiers in physiology, 10, 376.