Ant-Foam Rolling Article

Found this article. What do you guys think? Talks about that foam rolling is useless.

I don’t know about you all but i get results from foam rolling or using the LAX ball.

Interesting article. I find that I enjoy it also for the hips, and even helped out my lower back a few months ago. Regarding rolling before workouts and restricting performance-- this is very interesting and something to think about. its funny how when you take a step back, complicated things can seem more simple – I like how that author breaks his theory down in a very simple fashion.

The arguments are pretty weak and fly in the face of results

i used to be very religious about my soft tissue work. spent about an hour daily with an EVA foam roller and a hard plastic softball (the sport) sized ball. sometimes a golf ball. rolling over the general area then focusing in on pressure releasing trigger points.

  • i found that my calves needed to be released daily. they would be all cramped up in the morning… i’d release them… they would be all cramped up the next morning.

  • i found that my hip flexors were pretty permanently tight and pissed off.

i was told that i might be overdoing it. basically inflamming the soft tissue rather than assisting it to properly relax / recover.

i figured that was bullshit but agreed to stop with the plastic ball / golfball for 2 weeks and just keep up GENTLE (bloodflow promoting not trigger point release) foam rolling.

i gave it three weeks.

the upshot:

I found that my calves were doing a lot better now. guess they didn’t need all the extra i was giving them.

i needed some extra work on my hips / glutes with a ‘high bounce’ rubber ball rather than hard plastic. ditto for feet / ankles. but basically going much easier / gentler. less frequently. also treating trigger point release as something that i need a couple days to recover from.

my experience FWIW

Alot of the articles ive read on here, especially with Mike Boyle and Eric Cressey they both do foam roll/ soft tissue stuff before a training session . Im going to assume they currently know the optimal stuff to be doing to increase your mobility and performance.

I’m pretty sure this falls under too much of a good thing still isn’t good for you just as with anything else.

skimmed that fast, but sounds like he’s not saying people are ignoring the root cause of pain. I will agree that if you continue to get tight / have pain, there is probably a fundamental problem, either with your movement patterns, joints, structure, etc. I know for me though rolling with a lacrosse ball and pvc tube has helped relieve pain and improve my mobility.

[quote]Marther wrote:
The arguments are pretty weak and fly in the face of results[/quote]

X 1000

If you’re not all ready doing it, take 10 minutes at the start of each workout to roll your whole body. You will be better off.

Foam rolling never did a thing for me other than just smash muscle. I hard ball works a lot better.

[quote]JRT6 wrote:
Foam rolling never did a thing for me other than just smash muscle…[/quote]

then you are probably doing it wrong…

I think people just write these articles to be controversial, like that stretching article.

[quote]FrozenNinja wrote:
I’m pretty sure this falls under too much of a good thing still isn’t good for you just as with anything else.[/quote]

Exactly.

My wife was suffering some back spasms and tightness and scheduled a deep massage. The day before her appointment, she asked me to massage the area for some temp relief.

Next day at the therapists office, the doctor started the massage on my wife’s back, then stopped and asked, “Did you have a massage very recently?”

My wife told her that I did it. The therapist told her that she could tell by feel and it wasn’t a god idea.