Nowadays, everyone pays more and more attention to relaxation after fitness. Many people are afraid that they cannot relax well with their hands, so they think of using equipment to relax themselves. In many gyms or fitness studios, foam rollers are equipment used for relaxation. So do you think foam roller relaxation is really useful? Let’s go take a look below!
Is foam roller relaxation really useful?
Foam roller relaxation has a certain purpose. Foam rolling is a way of "self-fascial relaxation." In addition, we can also use tennis balls, peanut balls, explosive fascia guns, and even barbells to achieve this goal. Pain caused by local fascial tension is generally called fascial pain syndrome, and this tension is thought to be caused by "trigger points." This pain can theoretically be relieved through self-fascial release.
The experiment found that after 2 minutes and 10 minutes of relaxing the quadriceps muscles with a foam roller, the range of motion of the knee joint increased by 10° and 8° respectively, and the muscle performance was not affected. Research has found that we can find that foam rollers can indeed increase joint range of motion without affecting sports performance. Participants who used a foam roller to relax reported less soreness 24, 48, and 72 hours after training.
Based on current research evidence, foam rolling may provide benefits such as improving flexibility, relieving delayed onset muscle soreness, and promoting recovery without affecting athletic performance. Therefore, I recommend using a foam roller over static stretching.