Ease Aches With This 5-Minute Foam Roller Workout, foam rolling almost always feels good. Health - Injuries, Nutrition - Weight Loss.
Here’s what research says about getting the most out of your time rolling around on the floor, according to a review of studies published in the Journal of Body Work & Movement Therapies.
Before a Run
Of the 49 studies included in the research review, 26 looked at foam rolling’s effects on immediate performance. Most of these studies measured things like vertical leap and other explosive actions that have little to do with most runners’ training.
That said, many studies have shown foam rolling to increase flexibility and lessen feelings of muscle stiffness. If, as is reasonable to think, starting a run with better range of motion improves performance, then prerun rolling sounds like a good idea.
“Using [foam rolling] as part of an active warmup will be particularly useful for sports that requite both flexibility and force production,” the review authors wrote, in a statement that certainly encompasses running.
The review authors are among experts who counsel against static stretching Like sports massage dynamic stretching delayed onset muscle soreness.
Hayd’n Hill, one of the review authors and a sports medicine clinician at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, told Runner’s World to aim for a pressure level of 5 on a 1-to-10 scale when rolling before a workout. Wayne Lombard, another review author and University of Cape Town clinician, recommended 30- to 60-second bouts of rolling one area, with brief rests between bouts. “Use the rest period between each set to move around a bit, give the muscle groups time to respond to the stimulus,” Lombard said.
Hill and Lombard agreed that it should be equally effective to rotate among a few body parts—say, IT band, quads, and calves—rather than to rest passively between bouts. If you’re pressed for time, Lombard said one bout per body part should suffice, but you’ll probably get better results from two or three bouts for your chronically tight and tender spots. Hill said rolling and then moving around allows you to assess whether your rolling helped, or whether more rolling is warranted.
Once you’ve rolled, don’t dawdle on starting your run. Hill and colleagues note that the flexibility increases from rolling might not last longer than 10 minutes.
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That said, many studies have shown foam rolling to increase
During a Run
Runners stopping trailside and pulling out a foam roller midway through a 10-miler isn’t common. But what about during something like a relay race when you’re running more than one leg, or a track meet where you’re doing more than one event? Would foam rolling after one hard run help you in a near-future hard run?
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Maybe, maybe not. In one study included in the review, runners did two hard 800-meter runs, separated by 30 minutes, on separate occasions. During one of their doubles, they did some foam rolling (but not for half an hour); the other time, they did “passive rest” (i.e., laze about) between. Their times on the second 800 weren’t significantly better when they foam rolled. Then again, they weren’t significantly worse. If you’re used to foam rolling, enjoy it, and keep the rolling pressure moderate, there’s probably no harm in such a situation.
A more common scenario for adult runners is a relay race with longer legs and longer gaps, measured in hours rather than minutes, between legs. In that situation, rolling after the first hard run is really more a matter of recovery, which is the other main focus of research on foam rolling.
After a Run
A different review of foam rolling research, We may earn commission from links on this page, but we only recommend products we back Join Runners World+ for unlimited access to the best training tips for runners, concluded, “Evidence seems to justify the widespread use of foam rolling as a warm-up activity rather than a recovery tool.”
But it looked at fewer studies than the newer review, and the studies it examined included fewer admittedly subjective measurements of recovery. The newer review found solid evidence for foam rolling reducing delayed onset muscle soreness and increasing what researchers call “pressure pain threshold,” or what you might call “how hard I can jab my quads without recoiling.”
These Foam Rollers Are the Perfect Recovery Tool compression gear and taking ice baths, that can make your legs (and therefore your mind) feel readier for your next run. Hill said it’s okay to roll with a little more pressure after your run than you do before a workout. Focus on your problems areas, both your long-term ones and any newcomers you noticed during your run. Rotate among those body spots to see if the previous round of rolling made a difference.
What if “after a run” means hours after? Is there any point to the common runner practice of rolling for a few minutes before going to bed?
There may be some benefit, and there’s almost certainly no harm. In one study, foam rolling three times a week for four weeks improved scores in a stand-and-reach test of flexibility. Hill and Lombard said they saw no reason not to roll out your tender spots, or to un-scrunch your spine, at the end of a long day.
Just how does foam rolling produce its benefits? The honest answer is that experts disagree, although there appears to be some effect on the central nervous system that could lead to body-wide improvements. As the review authors put it, “There has not been any [foam rolling] research directly measuring or determining the mechanisms through which [foam rolling] operates.”
While we wait for that research to occur, keep on rolling.
