Some people say foam rollers are the devil reincarnated. Some argue that they are so worthless that they aren’t worth the foam they were made with. Some say they are pretty cool and do stuff sometimes. And some worship them as a religion.

Where do I stand? To find out, we will have to go back to the beginning of the story, jump to the end, discuss some events in the middle, go back to the end again, return to the beginning, and then just go through it in chronological order.

Just kidding, I’ll tell you. But, first, let me tell you a little bit about flexibility.

Flexibility

Flexibility and mobility training is a hotly debated topic in strength and conditioning. Just like foam rolling, it’s a polarizing topic that has people on all sides of the fence (or on it, which is probably uncomfortable). We won't get into detail on flexibility today, but let me at least say this: flexibility is a thing and an individual can alter it.

Flexibility is a measure of a joint's range of motion (ROM), or the degree of movement that occurs at that joint. Joints can have static flexibility, the ROM at a joint during passive movements like trying to touch your toes. Or they can have dynamic flexibility, the ROM at a joint during active movements, like knee drive height while running.

This is where people often get hung-up. Is static or dynamic flexibility more important? That’s a conversation for another day. However, one thing is true: Flexibility is important. Can’t touch your toes? Guess what, your squat probably isn’t too hot either. Tight lats? Well, good luck getting that “kick me” sign off your back. Tight pecs? Good luck with your severe shoulder pain five years from now (or, today, if you’re already at that point).

There are more than just your muscles that affect your flexibility. Tendons, ligaments, connective tissues, joint capsules, and skin all have a part in this pesky thing called flexibility.

There are also neuromuscular connections that affect muscles, tendons, and flexibility. There are these things called muscle spindles and golgi-tendon organs (GTOs) that respond to how much a muscle stretches. These little guys send a signal to the central nervous system based on external stimulus and from there provide a reflex or relaxation response. You know when the doctor hits your knee with that hammer thing and you almost kick him between the legs? You can thank muscle spindles and GTOs for that response.

When it comes to flexibility, we want a relaxation response. When it comes to foam rolling, we want the same (to an extent).

Why the Foam Roller?

At the end of the day, a foam roller is a self massage. You lay on a foam cylinder or press a rolly-stick into your muscles and provide pressure to them. In gym-nerd speak, it is called “self-myofascial release.” Which literally means “self muscle/connective tissue release.” And that’s exactly what we are doing. We are releasing some of these inefficient ‘bonds’ between the muscle and it’s connective tissue wrapping.

The foam roller is theorized to make tissue more pliable, or able to change its length. It does this in a myriad of ways and none of them involve magic (as some foam rolling devotees may tell you). For my science nerds, here are some of the ways a foam roller ‘releases’ muscle tissue:

• It can provide thixotropic tissue responses, which just means that it can decrease the viscosity (thickness) of some of the fluids in the tissue with the agitation that the foam rolling provides.
• It can have pain-reducing effects in muscles by utilizing those muscle spindles and GTOs mentioned earlier.
• It reduces tissue adhesions, or fibrous bonds that form between connective tissue and muscle tissue (usually after injury or exercise).

At the end of the day, if your muscles have a whole bunch of inefficient bonds to hard, stiff connective tissue, do you think you’ll be flexible? If the fluid in your muscles is like molasses, think you’ll be doing the splits? If you're in pain, does it make sense that you might also be tight and stiff?

So, it stands to reason that if foam rolling is good at these things, it should make you more flexible and possibly improve your performance, right?

Sure, but how much?

If S&C Were A Religion, Would Foam Rolling Be It’s Zeus?

No, it wouldn’t.

In 2019, Thimo Wiewelhove and their team published a meta-analysis (study of studies), compiling 21 high-quality foam rolling studies to figure out what’s what when it comes to it’s effectiveness.

They analyzed some studies that discussed the impact of pre-exercise foam rolling and post-exercise foam rolling.

Without getting crazy into the details, there is value in both pre-exercise and post-exercise foam rolling.

The biggest benefits before exercise come with sprint performance and flexibility. This is probably because sprint performance and the ROM of the hip joint are highly correlated. More ROM at this joint can lead to an increased stride length and possibly more force production if the athlete has been properly trained. Strength and jump performance were not highly affected.

Post-exercise foam rolling reduces pain perception by a significant margin. This means post-exercise soreness was lowered. This obviously has many benefits, including possibly improving flexibility as a result of decreased pain sensation and increased strength for the same reason. That being said, strength and sprint ability were positively affected by foam rolling after exercise by a fair margin. However, jump performance was again, not affected.

I haven’t given you any numbers for how much these aspects of training were impacted. It should be noted that pain perception and flexibility were the most positively improved, while sprint and strength values were only moderately improved.

So, where does foam rolling fit in the grand scheme of things?

It’s not Zeus, and it’s not the devil. It’s important, but not end-all-be-all.

At this point, I’ve given you the facts. But, research on foam rolling’s efficacy is limited. So, now we are in opinion territory. My opinion is that when time isn’t a factor, you should absolutely foam roll. It will improve your flexibility, improve muscle tissue quality, improve performance, and decrease soreness. However, if you’re a trainer and only have an hour with a client who only barely shows up on time, ditch the foam roller and focus on movement and static stretching for the purposes of improving tissue quality, flexibility, and performance.

I foam roll when I’m sore and need to train those sore muscle groups. I also foam roll everything when I have all the time in the world. I don’t foam roll when time is short and I feel ready to go.

Of course, no blog on foam rolling would be complete without me telling you my techniques on how to do it effectively. So, here you go!

How to Foam Roll

Don’t waste your time foam rolling if you’re not even going to do it right. Foam rolling requires only three things to be done effectively:

• Foam roll for no less than one minute on each spot. Any less won’t have any significant impacts on soft-tissue quality.
• Use movement to enhance the effectiveness of foam rolling. Moving muscles are happy muscles.
• Slower is better than fast and more pressure is better than less. This isn’t a race. There are no prizes for the most passes with your foam roller over a slab of your thigh tissue.

If you’re not sure what all of this looks like, here is a video of me foam rolling my quads. You see I’m using motion and a slow tempo to get the highest benefit. Checkout my YouTube for more foam rolling videos!

‍