Is foam rolling scientifically proven

Increasing flexibility

Does foam rolling increase flexibility

Foam rolling will increase flexibility, but this only lasts less than 10 minutes (1–3)⁠. Further, one study showed that an 8 week course of foam rolling produced no long term increase in flexibility (4)⁠. In other words, if you spend 10 minutes foam rolling, by the time you finish the first muscles you did will have lost any increase.

Misleading marketing

Advocates and marketers will use statements such as “foam rolling gave an acute increase in flexibility”. In this context “acute” means having a sudden onset and a short course, but most people won't understand that and realise the implications.

Your scientifically proven ways to improve your flexibility

1. Conventional stretching
2. Dynamic warm-ups
3. Vibration massage
4. For more information

Conventional stretching exercises

Conventional stretching exercises are arguably the benchmark for helping increase flexibility, giving excellent and lasting results (5,6)⁠. However, there is a potential issue with using them as part of a warm-up before competition or a work out. Conventional stretches can 1) decrease performance, and 2) increase the risk of injury by allowing joints to move beyond their normal ranges (5,7)⁠.

For more information: Warm-ups: a guide to reducing injuries, increasing performance, and reducing post exercise soreness

A dynamic warm-up

These are basically exercises and movements done before competition or a work out. These have proven to give an excellent increase in flexibility, arguably without the risk of causing joints to move beyond their normal ranges (8)⁠.

For more information: Warm-ups: a guide to reducing injuries, increasing performance, and reducing post exercise soreness

Genuine vibration massage⁠

Vibration at therapeutic frequencies (30-60 hz (cycles per second)) will relax muscles allowing them to lengthen, arguably without the risk of causing joints to move beyond their normal ranges (9)⁠.

Advice on using vibration massage

There are a great number of vibrating massagers and massage guns on the market, but most will not give you significant amounts of these therapeutic effects and can even hurt you. To help you get the proper benefits later in this article we have a section on how to choose the right equipment and how to use it properly.

For more information 

Warm-ups: a guide to reducing injuries, increasing performance, and reducing post exercise soreness

Reducing post exercise soreness and speeding recovery

Does foam rolling reduce post exercise soreness and speed recovery

Marketers and advocates will mention trials that have shown that foam rollers reduce post exercise soreness and speed recovery. The reality is that there have been a great number of trials with some showing a small improvement (which they tell you about) while others show the opposite. In summary, a recent scientific review of all 21 studies they concluded that any effects on performance and recovery were rather minor or negligible (10)⁠.

Your scientifically proven ways to reduce post exercise soreness and speed recovery

1. Use a complete strategy
2. Massages shown to help

Use a complete strategy

Rather than just use some sort of tool or therapy we recommend a complete approach including appropriate sleep, rest, nutrition, hydration, and other aids. We provide this in our article The practical, science based guide to post exercise recovery . There are a lot of therapies marketed for this purpose, including cryotherapy, compression, massage guns and of course foam rollers. Science shows that none of these are particularly useful, however, the following massages have been shown to help.

Massages shown to help

Genuine vibration massage

Genuine vibration massage has been shown to give very worthwhile reductions in pain and to speed recovery (1,5–13) . Science shows that vibration massage relaxes muscles and increases blood flow, plus as discussed in our  Does vibration help healing  it has some quite remarkable additional effects.

• speeding the growth of muscle fibres
• reducing the amount of scar tissue formed
• causes and increase in the body’s production of growth hormones

Advice on using vibration massage

There are a great number of vibrating massagers and massage guns on the market, but most will not give you significant amounts of these therapeutic effects and can even hurt you. To help you get the proper benefits later in this article we have a section on how to choose the right equipment and how to use it properly.

Manual massage performed by a professional therapist

Science shows that manual massage therapy performed by a professional therapist is not as effective as genuine vibration, but still very useful. It will help healing by relaxing the muscles, plus the squeezing and mechanical pumping effects of the massage will increase blood flow, flushing wastes and bringing in fresh nutrients and oxygen. Because of this some clinical trials of massage have produced good results in reducing post exercise soreness and speeding recovery (11–14)⁠.

Improving athletic performance

Does foam rolling improve athletic performance

Clinical trials have shown that foam rollers give no improvement in performance (15–18)⁠⁠⁠, nor does conventional massage have any effect on strength, endurance or fatigue (19)⁠.

Avoiding the performance loss with conventional stretches

Conventional stretches can cause a reduction in performance. Advocates recommend foam rolling as is does not cause such a reduction. However, as we will see though there are better ways that will not cause a reduction in performance, and may even give you an increase.

Your scientifically proven ways to improve performance

In this section we will look at the things you can do before competing that may help. Please also note that trials have shown that regular convention massage and vibration massage help performance by improving the health of your muscles and removing issues that inhibit performance such as tightness and (myofascial) trigger points. For more information please see: Does massage help athletic or sports performance .

1. Dynamic warm-ups
2. Genuine vibration massage
3. Further information

Dynamic warm-ups

A dynamic warm-up means doing movement or activities before a workout or competition. Examples include exercising. They have been shown to increase flexibility and strength (8)⁠. One trial found that compared with no warm-up dynamic warm-ups actually increased the height an athlete could jump by 2” (5cm) (20)⁠⁠.

For more information on dynamic warm-ups: Warm-ups: a guide to reducing injuries, increasing performance, and reducing post exercise soreness

Genuine vibration massage

According to the results of many clinical trials the application of vibration massage of 30-60 Hz before exercise will have these positive effects:

• increase flexibility similar to that achieved by stretching exercises (8)⁠⁠
• enhance strength (21,22)⁠⁠, and
• increase the time taken for muscles to fatigue (23)⁠⁠⁠.
• decrease post exercise soreness (24,25)⁠

Advice on using vibration massage

There are a great number of vibrating massagers and massage guns on the market, but most will not give you significant amounts of these therapeutic effects and can even hurt you. To help you get the proper benefits later in this article we have a section on how to choose the right equipment and how to use it properly.

For further information

Your Science Based Guide To Sports Massages: Types, Benefits And Recommendations

Vibration massage usage advice

What is vibration massage
Vibration massage is perfect for self use
Usage advice
Why most vibrating massagers are not very effective
Suitable machines

Vibration massage is perfect for self use

With the proper equipment vibration massage is very safe and very effective, plus it does not require any special massage skills. To put is simply, all you do is sit the vibrating head/pad on where you wish to massage and let the vibrations soak in. With the proper advice (see next section), as long as the machine is sitting in the right spot and delivering the right frequencies it does not matter who holds the handle.

Usage advice

For the safe and effective use of vibration massage please see the following guides.
How to choose a massager
Vibration massage usage guide
The scientifically proven effects of vibration massage- with clinical applications

Why most vibrating massagers are not very effective

While there are a huge number of vibrating massagers and massage guns on the market most do not give decent amounts of therapeutic vibrations.

In this section:

• “Consumer” massagers
• Massage guns
• Poor usage advice

Massage guns

Massage guns use percussion rather than vibration. Simply speaking this means they drive their heads in like jackhammers rather than send in vibrations. Because of this:

• they send in far less vibrations than a genuine vibration massager
• driving the head in can be uncomfortable and cause injury so massage guns cannot be safely at the effective therapeutic vibration frequencies
• the can easily hurt you. There is even a journal report of a person nearly dying from internal bleeding after using a massage gun.

For more information please see Are massage guns scientifically proven

Poor usage advice

Mechanical vibrating massagers require different techniques to those used for conventional massage. Too many people (including professionals and "YouTube Gurus") do not seem to understand this and use conventional massage techniques. Doing this is far less effective and can hurt you. For more information please see Common massager usage mistakes .

References

1. DeBruyne DM, Dewhurst MM, Fischer KM, Wojtanowski MS, Durall C. Self-mobilization using a foam roller versus a roller massager: Which is more effective for increasing hamstrings flexibility? J Sport Rehabil. 2017;26(1):94–100.
2. Konrad A, Nakamura M, Behm DG. The Effects of Foam Rolling Training on Performance Parameters: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis including Controlled and Randomized Controlled Trials. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022;19(18).
3. Pagaduan JC, Chang SY, Chang NJ. Chronic Effects of Foam Rolling on Flexibility and Performance: A Systematic Review of Randomized Controlled Trials. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022;19(7).
4. Miller JK, Rockey AM. Foam Rollers Show No Increase in the Flexibility of the Hamstring Muscle Group. UW-LJournal Undergrad Res. 2006;1–4.
5. Harvey L et. al. Does stretching induce lasting increases in joint ROM - a systematic review. Physiother Res Int. 2001;7(1):1–13.
6. Ford P, McChesney J. Duration of maintained hamstring ROM following termination of three stretching protocols. Vol. 16, Journal of Sport Rehabilitation. 2007. p. 18–27.
7. Rubini EC, Costa ALL, Gomes PSC. The effects of stretching on strength performance. Sport Med. 2007;37(3):213–24.
8. Aguilar AJ, DiStefano LJ, Brown CN, Herman DC, Guskiewicz KM, Padua DA. A dynamic warm-up model increases quadriceps strength and hamstring flexibility. J Strength Cond Res. 2012;26(4):1130–41.
9. Kurt C. Alternative to traditional stretching methods for flexibility enhancement in well-trained combat athletes: Local vibration versus whole-body vibration. Biol Sport. 2015;32(3):225–33.
10. Weiwlhove T. A Meta-Analysis of the effects of foam rolling on perforrmance and recovery. Front Physiol. 2019;10:376.
11. Bender PU, Luz CM, Feldkircher JM NG. Massage therapy slightly decreased pain intensity after habitual running , but had no effect on fatigue , mood or physical performance : a randomised trial. J Physiother. 2019;65(2):75–80.
12. Selim KAPLAN A. Effect of sport massage on pressure pain threshold and tolerance in athletes under eccentric exercise. Int J Sci Cult Sport. 2014;2(6):136–136.
13. Naderi A, Aminian-Far A, Gholami F, Mousavi SH, Saghari M, Howatson G. Massage enhances recovery following exercise-induced muscle damage in older adults. Scand J Med Sci Sport. 2021;31(3):623–32.
14. Kargarfard M, Lam ETC, Shariat A, Shaw I, Shaw BS, Tamrin SBM. Efficacy of massage on muscle soreness, perceived recovery, physiological restoration and physical performance in male bodybuilders. J Sports Sci. 2016;34(10):959–65.
15. Mauntel TC, Clark MA, Padua DA. Effectiveness of Myofascial Release Therapies on Physical Performance Measurements: A Systematic Review . Athl Train Sport Heal Care. 2014;6(4):189–96.
16. Phillips J, Diggin D, King DL, Sforzo GA. Effect of Varying Self-myofascial Release Duration on Subsequent Athletic Performance. J strength Cond Res. 2021;35(3):746–53.
17. Beardsley C, Skarabot J. Effects of self-myofascial release : A systematic review. J Bodyw Mov Ther. 2015;
18. Fama B, Bueti D. The acute effect of self-myofascial release on lower extremity plyometric performance. Masters Thesis. 2011;1–42.
19. Davis HL, Alabed S, Chico TJA. Effect of sports massage on performance and recovery: a systematic review and meta-analysis. BMJ Open Sport Exerc Med. 2020;6(1):e000614.
20. Frant TL, Rui MD. Effects of dynamic warm-up on lower body explosiveness among collegiate baseball players. J Strength Cond Res. 2011;25(11):2985–90.
21. Alghadir AH, Anwer S, Zafar H, Iqbal ZA. Effect of localised vibration on muscle strength in healthy adults: a systematic review. Physiother (United Kingdom). 2018;104(1):18–24.
22. Pamukoff DN, Ryan ED, Troy Blackburn J. The acute effects of local muscle vibration frequency on peak torque, rate of torque development, and EMG activity. Vol. 24, Journal of Electromyography and Kinesiology. 2014. p. 888–94.
23. Otadi K et. a. A prophylactic effect of local vibration on quadriceps muscle fatigue in non-athletic males : a randomized controlled trial study. J Phys Ther Sci. 2019;31:223–6.
24. Imtiyaz S, Veqar Z, Shareef MY. To compare the effect of vibration therapy and massage in prevention of delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS). J Clin Diagnostic Res. 2014;
25. Aminianfar A et. al. Comparison of the local and whole body vibration on preventation and treatment of delay-onset muscle soreness: A randomized clinical trial. Koomesh. 2019;21(4):650–5.