What Does Foam Rolling Really Do?
What Does Foam Rolling REALLY Do?
Ah, the foam roller. Both feared and loved by many and shrouded in mystery. We know it can be used to make your muscles feel better, but how exactly does it do that? Read below to find out what foam rolling really does for our tissue.
What Foam Rolling Doesn’t Do
Contrary to popular belief, foam rolling does not break up scar tissue or loosen the actual physiological structure of connective tissue. Our bodies and their tissues are incredibly resilient. If we could actually deform the tissue in our body by putting our body weight on a foam roller, then every time we carried groceries or a kid on our hip we would ALSO be deforming tissue. The pressure applied by a foam roller is not enough to actually change the form of the muscle or tendon. It takes about 2000 pounds of force to lengthen the IT band by 1%. Which means while you do feel looser after foam rolling, it’s not actual physiological stretching or deformation of the tissue that creates the change you feel.
How Foam Rolling Actually Works
What foam rolling does is it provides a stimulus to your brain and body. Our body and brain work as a feedback loop, constantly relaying messages back and forth to each other regarding the position of our limbs in space, the length of our muscles, and the force our muscles are producing. Muscles and tendons have pressure sensors, stretch, and tension receptors. The receptors in our tendons are called Golgi tendon organs (or GTOs). When we pick something up, our biceps contract, triggering the Golgi tendon organ. These Golgi tendon organs then send a signal to the brain telling it that the muscle is contracting, causing tension through the tendon. This allows the brain to modulate the movement, contracting or relaxing the muscles the right amount. Put simply, these GTOs are what are controlling the stretch in your muscle at any given time by telling the brain how much to contract or relax said muscle.
This means that when you’re foam rolling, you’re applying pressure to those same receptors and sensors that sense pressure and stretch. The GTOs sense the force of the foam roller where you are rolling it. They then send a message to your brain to tell it to relax that muscle. This is what actually creates the perceived change in muscle tension that you feel. The foam roll is simply a tool to elicit a change to how the brain is communicating with the muscle.
Just because the foam roller doesn’t primarly work on the muscle’s physiological structure itself (it does bring blood flow to the area), it doesn’t mean it isn’t helpful for a lot of people. It is a great tool to help many of my patients move better. In fact, I even have a link for those who want to add foam rolling to their routine here. However, tightness in muscles is a symptom, not a cause. Muscles feel tight for all sorts of reasons. If we don’t investigate why those muscles feel restricted, and simply keep foam rolling to address the tightness, odds are the same tightness will keep coming back again and again.
If you want to figure out the why behind your muscles feeling tight, instead of just foam rolling your IT band every day, click here to set up a discovery call or visit to get down to the cause of your tightness and get you back to moving fearlessly.
