Ah, foam rolling. After a difficult strength-training routine or long-distance run, nothing hurts so good like massaging your sore muscular tissues with a agency foam cylinder. “Foam rolling generally is a nice stress reliever and post-workout cooldown, and it’s manner cheaper than paying for a therapeutic massage,” says Christel Oerum, a licensed private coach and diabetes coach. Even higher, the advantages of froth rolling span far past its feel-good issue: Utilizing a foam curler will help enhance your flexibility and joint vary of movement, calm down your muscular tissues, ease soreness and ache, and even enhance restoration, per the Nationwide Academy of Sports activities Medication (NASM).
“Nevertheless, the consensus on the advantages of froth rolling isn’t totally clear, which most certainly comes all the way down to the underlying physiological mechanisms not having been completely researched,” says Oerum. Past this, researchers have additionally simply begun exploring how the timing of froth rolling (earlier than, throughout or after your exercise) may (or may not) result in completely different results. One key query: May pre-exercise foam rolling — a observe some private trainers check with as “neuropriming” — assist enhance your efficiency instantly afterward?
Right here’s what we all know up to now, and recommendations on whether or not or not you need to add a fast foam roll to your warmup routine, in keeping with train science specialists:
THE THEORY BEHIND PRE-WORKOUT FOAM ROLLING
As you roll your muscular tissues, gravity lets you give your self a deep therapeutic massage in your muscular tissues and the robust tissue surrounding them referred to as the fascia. “This will help launch very tight and sometimes tender or painful areas, inflicting a ‘launch’ within the bound-up fascia,” says Michele Olson, PhD, a senior medical professor at Huntingdon Faculty in Montgomery, Alabama. Olson provides that for this reason foam rolling is often known as myofascial launch. “The idea is that foam rolling will increase the blood provide to your muscular tissues and should lengthen the fascia so it’s much less constricting round your muscular tissues, permitting for higher muscle elasticity.” Meaning you’re extra comfy and your freedom of motion is elevated earlier than you begin understanding.
Ideally, this elevated vary of movement lets you kickstart high-agility workout routines, like working or dancing, as a result of your muscular tissues are ready to completely stretch and recoil as you pace up, cease, flip, leap and explode ahead, says Olson. On this sense, warming up with foam rolling may additionally assist forestall muscle accidents like strains and sprains.
Lastly, there’s the mind-muscle connection: “Growing blood circulation and stimulating the muscular tissues and fascia invokes a higher electrical connection between the mind, muscle neurons and muscle tissue,” says Olson. Foam rolling could “prime” your physique bodily and neurologically to get transferring with easy and exact muscle management.
SHOULD YOU FOAM ROLL BEFORE YOUR WORKOUT?
Whereas the complicated mechanisms behind myofascial launch are nonetheless considerably theoretical, researchers have begun to look into the impression of pre-workout foam rolling. One 2019 meta-analysis in Frontiers in Physiology reviewed 14 research for the impact foam rolling had on muscle flexibility in addition to efficiency in assessments of sprinting, leaping and power. The unhealthy information? “Whereas the research present a small enchancment in flexibility and sprinting, it most likely gained’t be vital sufficient to make a distinction for leisure athletes,” says Oerum. “Nevertheless, when you’re trying to shave just a few milliseconds off your dash PR, foam rolling previous to your exercise might provide you with that further edge.” When it comes to leaping and power, the results appear to be negligible, in keeping with research up to now.
So, is a foam rolling warmup truly price your time? “At this level, it’s private choice,” says Olson. “There may be not an enormous benefit to foam rolling earlier than your exercise, and you continue to should do a daily warmup.” If you wish to foam roll earlier than train to ease any lingering aches and pains, go for it. Simply be certain that to comply with your foam roll with a correct dynamic warmup, she advises.
