Is Foam Rolling a Waste of Time?

Ever since foam rollers showed up on gym floors everywhere, I’ve wondered whether or not foam rolling actually provides any measurable benefit. If I’m going to spend 10 minutes of precious gym time horizontal, contorting myself on a glorified water noodle when I could be doing cardio or strength training, it better be worth my time.

I reviewed the literature on foam rolling, aka self-myofascial release (SMF). My opinion is that we still don’t have enough reliable, valid data to draw conclusions regarding the efficacy of SMF. However, there is pretty good evidence that SMF using either a foam roller or roller massager does 3 things:
 

1.    Decreases delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS). DOMS sucks. Less DOMS = longer and harder workouts = increase in overall level of fitness.

2.    Increases range of motion (ROM). ROM doesn’t suck. ROM helps maintain joint function by increasing and preserving joint mobility and flexibility.

3.    Increases your bank account. SMF can eliminate or reduce those expensive massages.

References:  http://journals.lww.com/acsm-csmr/Fulltext/2015/05000/Is_Self_Myofascial_Release_an_Effective.16._2

                     https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23575360