Advantages And Disadvantages Of Foam Rolling

In Lori Nickel’s blog post, she discusses the increased attractiveness to foam rolling as a means to reduce soreness from exercise. Foam rollers are becoming a popular and inexpensive mode of recovery for athletes to give the muscles a deep tissue massage without having to see a massage therapist. From Nickel’s diction, she is subtly claiming that foam rolling presents some competition to a massage since foam rollers are much cheaper. For this post, she interviewed Zach Koba, a physical therapist assistant, personal trainer and certified strength and conditioning specialist at the Sports Medicine Institute at Aurora Sinai, and he explains that foam rollers are vital in the recovery process since they have the ability to reach deep fascia. Athletes experience muscle soreness because of eccentric contractions. When there is an increased amount of tension on the muscles than the body is accustomed to, the muscles may tear, causing …show more content…
The main differences in this study came from the measurements of exertion, fatigue and soreness, showing a big change from before and after during each trial. Also, there was much less fatigue after foam rolling compared to when the subjects planked. The results of this experiment showed that foam rolling on the quadriceps, rhomboids, latissimus dorsi, hamstrings and calves did not affect performance. Although the men performed better than the women on the tests, the main difference between trials showed when the subjects were more fatigued after planking. This is the first study to examine the effects of foam rolling on performance and in the future, perhaps the literature on this subject will grow and provide more concrete evidence on the effects of foam rolling. Furthermore, this study, demonstrates that although foam rolling reduces fatigue, it does not appear to show any significant effects on