For what purpose are Muscle Rollers and Foam Rollers used for?
Foam rollers are an incredibly popular exercise and relaxation tool designed to help your body and treat sore muscles. Physical therapists and athletes have known about foam rollers for decades. But what are foam rollers actually used for, and what is the best way to use them?
- Relaxation
- Exercise & Exercise Recovery
- Pain Reduction and Elimination
Muscle Rollers and Foam rollers for relaxation
The autonomic nervous system acts as a system to control your body’s unconscious behavior. There are two main divisions of the nervous system. One is the sympathetic nervous system and the other is the parasympathetic nervous system. The sympathetic nervous system is there to activate the fight or flight response system for survival purposes. The sympathetic system gets your body in a tense or excited state.
On the contrary, the parasympathetic nervous system is a complimentary division of this amazing nervous system we all have. The parasympathetic nervous system stimulates the “resting” state of the body. It has been dubbed “rest-and-digest” or “feed-and-breed” state.
Massage activates the parasympathetic nervous system (relaxation)
There have been many scientifically validated studies that show moderate massage changes our physiology, and activates the parasympathetic nervous system. Since foam rollers and muscle rollers are essentially self massage, it helps to relax your muscles. When you use a foam roller, you enter a parasympathetic (relaxation) state.
It also breaks up muscle knots that cause pain and make your muscles tight and tense. Foam rollers are a method of self myofascial release, which has recently been getting lots of interest as a method of healing your muscles and treating and preventing pain.
Myofascial tissue is the translucent layer that surrounds your muscles, skeleton, and all organs. It is supposed to slip easily against your muscle layers and let your muscles move underneath them. But with increased stress and strain on your muscles, you can end up with myofascial adhesion. This is when the muscles actually become stuck to the myofascial tissue. This keeps the muscle from being able to contract and relax correctly.
Foam rollers for Exercise
Foam rollers are very popular in the fitness industry because it is often used as an exercise recovery aid, and it is also sometimes used as a tool to do different exercises with.
- Exercise Recovery
- Exercise tool
Foam rollers are especially great for exercise recovery. There have been several foam roller studies that show that foam rolling decreases delayed onset muscle soreness. After working out, your muscles have gathered lactic acid which causes soreness and stiffness the day afterwards. Foam rolling increases blood flow to your muscles, thus washing away the lactic acid and all the toxins that are built up in your muscles. The increased blood flow also helps your muscles heal and rebuild faster. This means you can go back to working out more quickly, without having to take long rest periods in between strenuous workouts.
Pain Reduction and Elimination
Through normal day to day activities, you end up with spots in your muscle where the muscle is permanently contracted. These spots are commonly called knots, though in the world of foam rolling we call them myofascial trigger points.
Myofascial trigger points cause a lot of pain. You may feel them all the time or just when you press on them. You may feel pain directly at the spot where you put pressure, or you may feel it somewhere else, known as referred pain. They may be large or they may be as small as a pinprick. Whatever kind of myofascial trigger points you might have, a foam roller puts pressure on them and breaks them up, thus giving you muscle relaxation and pain relief.