What are the benefits of foam rolling before a workout?

Question

Lalo Vera · Answer

Okay, so when you foam roll, what you're really doing is you're letting your body feel the area. You're not breaking up any kind of myofascial release or any tissue or anything. That doesn't happen. It's not that easy. People get told that a lot, but that's not how it works. Now, what it really does as far as if you're very sore or if you're in some type of pain is that because you're foam rolling that area or you're putting pressure in that area, you're essentially doing a small stretch with a lot of pressure, so you're turning off the receptors of pain in that area. So as soon as you're done foam rolling, hey, you won't feel anything for a little while. Why? Because the receptors of pain are basically tuned down. So that's why foam rolling has been used a lot is because I'm sore, I feel like I'm tight, and then I just foam roll and I don't feel it anymore. That doesn't mean it goes away. So there's no research that says that foam rolling is going to help you perform better. Now, for top level athletes or for whoever works out with a very high power output or high strength and things like that, if you have a routine that includes foam rolling, then it helps with just you mentally having your routine and being able to be calm about, alright, I warmed up correctly, now I'm going to go train. So there's not really a lot of benefits from it.

Paul Edmondson · Answer

What are the benefits of foam rolling before a workout? For me there's two reasons why you would want to promote foam rolling prior to working out. Number one, hydration. So hydration is the replenishment of fluids between the interstitial spaces that are in fascia and muscle. So if you imagine fibers that are in muscle, those fibers if they represent my fingers, in between those fibers are little channels of water. That water when it's pushed and squeezed out enables fibers to stick together which impacts movement quality. So think of sitting down on your hamstrings all day. Your body weight squishing your hamstrings, squeezes the hamstrings like a sponge, it dehydrates those tissues and thus they get stuck together and glide and slide is impacted. So if I can replenish through pressure and release, I can drive blood, water and lymph to those tissues and increase the mechanical abilities for those tissues to lengthen and shorten. Number two, you're going to increase touched induced analgesia which is a fancy way of stimulating the nervous system for either activation or down regulating stress. So if I put a medium pressure at quite a quick speed, then that touch induced analgesia is telling my brain to wake up and activate because that rub and scrub effect of the skin excites my nerve endings which stimulates muscles to get my nervous system ready to exercise. If I'm stressed and I perform a slow gradual pressure, then that touch like a massage can down regulate tension. So I can use it prior to a workout neurologically and mechanically to increase movement ability for the end user.

Tim Crowley · Answer

What are the benefits of foam rolling before a workout? Well, it's a great way to start the workout because it's low intensity, we can get our foam roll, we can start to move through starting at the upper body and working through all the areas. We can do an assessment in terms of how we're feeling, do we have knots, are we sore? It's also going to increase blood flow and that's going to make for good preparation to going into our mobility or our dynamic warm up. So spending three to five minutes doing a foam roll routine that's going to cover all the major muscle groups is a really good way to start your training session.

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"What are the benefits of foam rolling before a workout?"