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Foam rolling seemed to come out of nowhere maybe 15 or 20 years ago. It enjoyed a monumental level of popularity, feeling for a while like maybe it was mandatory if you wanted to train well. Many of the supposed benefits of foam rolling turned out to be myths, but foam rolling has stuck around as one of many tools we can use for recovery and mobility. Let’s separate fact from fiction.
What is foam rolling?
A foam roller is a cylinder, originally made of a slightly squishy foam, that you typically place on the floor. (The foam is similar to what a pool noodle is made of, but denser.) You then put a part of your body on top of the roller—say, your thigh—and move back and forth so that the cylinder (the foam roller) massages that part of you, assisted by the weight of your body pressing into it.
It’s basically a form of self-massage, and you can adjust the intensity of the massage by leaning into the roller (to make it feel more intense) or by supporting your body on a free arm or leg (to make it gentler).
Foam rollers are often about six inches in diameter, and may be as little as a foot long (for a mini roller) or two to three feet long for larger models. They also come in a variety of materials, including rollers that are textured, or that are stiffer or softer than the original foam type.
When and how do you do foam rolling?
Foam rolling is often done before a workout, as part of a warmup. You’ll foam roll the muscles that your workout is about to use, and/or the ones that the workout may slightly stretch. Foam rolling can also be done as a session on its own, and is often marketed as being for “recovery.” This means different things to different people, but it’s often thought to relieve feelings of muscle soreness. Let’s look at the myths and truths about foam rolling, and then return to the question of how best to use this tool.
Foam rolling probably doesn’t break up “adhesions”
One theory about foam rolling relates to the fascia surrounding our muscles. Fascia is a catchall term for the membranes that surround our muscles. There is a belief among some trainers and health professionals that areas of fascia can get stuck to each other or to our muscles, and that these stuck-together areas are called adhesions.
In this theory, foam rolling is good for us because it breaks up those adhesions. In reality, scientists have not been able to find evidence that adhesions are real. Sure, your fascia can end up adhering to nearby tissues as a result of healing from surgery or trauma, but that’s not the same as the idea that your muscles are developing adhesions all the time from your daily life or from the exercise that you do, and that you need foam rolling or massage to release them.
This theory is widespread enough that “self-myofascial release” is used as a synonym for foam rolling. But when scientists have looked for evidence that these adhesions exist or that foam rolling “releases” them, they’ve failed to find any. “The current evidence indicates that the term self-myofascial release is misleading and a misnomer,” concludes a 2019 article on the subject. That doesn’t mean that foam rolling is useless, just that the common explanation for what it’s doing in there is kind of just made up.
Foam rolling probably helps mobility and flexibility
To be able to move well during a workout, you want some muscles to be warm and ready to contract; you also want some muscles to be supple and able to be stretched. (Some muscles, of course, fall into both categories.) The warmup phase of your workout exists to help accomplish these goals.
There is evidence that foam rolling can increase the flexibility of a muscle in the short term, much like stretching can. Athletes often want to avoid static stretching (holding a stretch for several seconds) before working out, since stretching tends to decrease strength temporarily. Fortunately, foam rolling seems to help increase flexibility without causing those short-term dents to strength and power. (So does dynamic stretching, but that’s another story.)
In some circles, the anti-foam-rolling pendulum has swung far enough that there are trainers saying it’s bad to work on mobility or flexibility before you exercise, because more flexibility isn’t always better. But a proper warmup is there, in part, to give you the flexibility you need to do your exercise safely and effectively. If you need to foam roll your calves to be able to bend your ankles enough to squat well, then that foam rolling (and even some static stretching!) is a good thing to do before a squat workout.
Foam rolling may help with soreness
It’s probably best to think of foam rolling as a type of massage. The evidence on massage for muscle soreness and recovery is mixed, but many people do seem to find that foam rolling helps to relieve soreness; the scientific evidence backs that up, at least somewhat. Foam rolling may help by making you less sensitive to pain, which is not necessarily the same as helping you recover faster, but the bottom line is the important part—people foam roll because it feels good.
And that’s the lesson to take away from this, I think. If foam rolling makes you feel better when you have a “knot” in your muscle, or if it helps relieve soreness so you can get on with your workout routine, then it’s worth doing whether it’s actually releasing adhesions or not.
As for using a foam roller in a workout warmup, I’d treat it the same way as any other warmup component, like static stretching or pre-lifting cardio: audition it, and see if it helps you to feel more ready for the main part of your workout. If it helps, keep it. And if it doesn’t, ditch it in favor of something that does work for you.
