Know Your Roll Part 3

Looking back on rolling- we’ve learned a few things. If you haven’t had a chance to read Part 1 and Part 2 of the “Know your Roll” series, I suggest you go back and take a look.

As we have previously established foam rolls come in all shapes and sizes, there are almost as many foam rolls on the market as there are ways to use them. Is this piece, we will look at a commonly used method in foam rolling, moving your joints as you roll.

You will see it every now and then, some one rolling back and forth while simultaneously flexing and extending their knee. Whats the point? Does it actually help?

A 2018 study from the Journal of Body Work and Movement Therapies aimed to shed some light on this subject(1). A total of 30 subject were split into two groups, half into a foam roller group with knee bending, and the other half into a foam roller group with no bending of the knee what so ever. The bending group added 4 sets of knee bends into the period of 2 minutes. What happened?

The research group looked at two primary outcome measures 1- total range of motion and 2- pain pressure thresholds ( basically how hard can we press on you until you feel pain) . The end result was the knee bending group had a statistically greater increase in range of motion and a higher pain tolerance following their bought of foam rolling.

Of course there are some limitations- one study doesn’t close the case, but it does point someone in the right direction as to how to increase their output while on a foam roller , at least for knee flexion/extension.

references:

1) Cheatham SW, Stull KR, Comparison of a foam rolling session with active joint motion and without joint motion: A randomized controlled trial. Journal Of Bodywork and Movement Therapies Vol 22 (2018) 707-712