Posted on June 26, 2015 by Jenny Cromack

What is Foam Rolling?

Foam rolling is a technique that is ever growing in popularity. It is a method of self-massage and soft-tissue release. You will see many people rolling around on the gym or studio floor on a cylinder of foam. This is a very simple method of treating yourself for aches, pains, and stiffness either as a warm up or for recovery.

Why Do We Do It and How Does It Work?

The primary reason people will use foam rolling is to loosen off tight, stiff, and sore muscles. It is often used within people’s warm ups for this reason, to loosen themselves off before engaging in exercise. It can also be used as a recovery tool after vigorous sessions to reduce the Delayed Onset Of Muscle Soreness.

The method itself can be done using a static, sweeping, or rolling method. When using the methods a friction is created between the tissues and fluids of the limb being treated and the roller tool itself. This has a stretching effect which helps breakdown any restrictions and adhesions within the soft-tissues that may have occurred through accumulation of exercises related micro-damage or scarring from previous injuries. The stickiness of our tissues may also be a result of dehydration of the tissues or prolonged poor posture resulting in muscles shortening and adopting compensatory positions. The foam rolling helps ‘iron’ these adhesions and restricted portions of the tissues. The sweeping and rolling motions will also help improve blood flow by literally squeezing and expanding blood vessels. By increasing this blood flow it will encourage the healing and delivery of nutrients to these previously restricted areas. This combined with stretching will help create an optimal state for the tissues.

By rolling these sticky and shortened tissues out we can help encourage a reduction in soreness, increases in range of motion, and improve muscular function. As you can imagine if we can physically move our joints further, with less pain, and our muscles can function more optimally this can only benefit our performance. This may mean better workouts, better sports performance, or simply getting through our daily lifestyle with more ease and comfort.

What’s The Science Behind It?

You may have seen people and wondered how does this actually work? One of the proposed mechanism of its effectiveness is the improvement in feedback between the brain and the muscles. By physically applying these pressures to the tissues creates feedback from the soft-tissues to our central nervous system (CNS). By creating this better “mind-muscle” connection it is said that we are more able to recruit more muscle fibres and voluntarily activate muscle groups.

In terms of pain relief and healing it is unclear as to how exactly this may work, but in my opinion the increases in blood flow will help bring in nutrients and substances required during the healing process thus aiding pain relief and injury recovery.

What Are They Major Benefits?

There is limited research on foam rolling but what there is suggests some very promising benefits.

  • Increased range of motion and flexibility
  • Increased muscle length,
  • Decreased muscle tone/spasm,
  • Decreased muscles soreness,
  • Increased blood flow,
  • Improved feedback between muscles and CNS
  • Resulting improvements in performance,
  • Encouraged recovery and healing.

How Do I Do It?

The word foam rolling suggest you need to go out and buy yourself a fancy roller. This isn’t the case you would be surprised at the things around the house or gym that you can use. As well as the foam roller we can use our hands, hockey/golf/lacrosse ball, rolling pin, or a barbell. The use of a barbell or the sports balls can be very intense and used for direct pressure so adjust the level of pressure on these according to your pain threshold.

Our own hands can push, pull, rub and create friction on our tissues to help loosen them off and breakdown any restrictions. We can also use a rolling pin to physically roll our tissues again creating friction and a stretching effect on the tissues. The balls and barbell can be used like the traditionally roller and we can put our weight and pressure on it and roll in all directions or apply a static pressure. Some of the different effective methods I use myself and with clients are as follows.

Specific Methods…

Ironing Out:

This is basically the traditional rolling that you see everyone doing in the gym. You place the limb or tissue to be treated on the roller/ball/or barbell and apply as much weight and pressure as you can stand onto it. Then you can roll up and down, but also roll across the tissues so it can be more multi-directional which people don’t realise. The biggest mistake people will make is that they find that a certain spot is very tender so they will avoid it. This is the spot that needs treating so stick with it focusing your pressure and rolling around that area and I guarantee it will start to ease off.

“Lock and Load”:

This is a more active method of tissue release and I find this works very well around stiff and restricted joints. To do this you should place the roller/ball/barbell on an area of the muscle that feels tight, sore, or stiff. Apply as much pressure as you can stand onto it, then actively move that joint so the muscle under pressure is stretched. The tool “locks” down the tissue and you “load” it and stretch it. In effect you are pulling the tissue from that point of pressure and thus helping stretch the tissues out.

Contract-Relax:

This is a bit more of a static method. This is great for relieving specific sore points in a muscle. Use your roller/ball/or barbell to find the sore spot, then apply the pressure to this point with as much as you can stand. This time hold the pressure there contract the muscle statically for 5 seconds, then relax and try let more pressure to sink into the tissue. You can do this for a few minutes repeating the contract and relax cycle or until you notice an improvement in soreness.

Exercise Examples…

Hamstring Lock and Load:

Sit on the edge of a bench or chair and place the roller/ball/barbell under the back of thigh so it sits across the tight portion of the hamstring muscle (back of the thigh). Then place as much pressure as you can down onto the roller etc. Once you have the pressure “locked” on straighten the knee as far as you can, you will feel this stretch the hamstring, hold for a second or two at the top then return down. As you relax you can ease of the pressure before then repeating the lock and the load technique.

Glute Contract-Relax:

Place a ball or roller in the sore point of the glute (buttock) then place as much pressure as you can through this (this can be very tender). Then squeeze the glute muscles so they harden up, hold it for 5 seconds or so, then relax and allow your weight to sink further onto the ball or roller. Do this for 2-3 minutes or until it is no longer as sore.

Thoracic Spine Roller:

This helps loosen the muscles around the spine and you may also get some popping and release of the vertebra (bones of the spine). A roller should be used for this one and placed horizontally across the tight portion of the back. Then, lying on it, place as much weight as you can stand onto it and slowly roll up and down it focusing on any area that is tender or sore.

Take Home Message:

There are a whole host of tools we can use to “roll” or loosen our tissues, the things I have mentioned but also anything that can serve the same purpose. You can be very creative when approaching this self-treatment method as long as you get a good idea of where the tissue is you can apply the methods to any portion of the tissue and play around with different stretching movements with the lock and load method. If in doubt look up the area of the body and its anatomy then have a go at some of the methods above.

Foam rolling as a method has some very promising evidence for its effectiveness, so now you have a better understanding of how and why it may work, and when it can be used, you can have a go at it yourself.