Fitness knowledge: What exactly is the foam roller rolling?

What exactly is the foam roller rolling?

　　Did you see someone rolling foam rollers in your gym? Do you know what they are doing?

　　After a long period of training or fierce competition, it is easy to cause excessive muscle tension. Therefore, sports massage is a very important way to recover fatigue for various sports events, especially professional players. Timely massage and relaxation are absolutely indispensable maintenance methods.

　　For example, the International Tennis Association stipulates that professional tennis events must have resident sports massagers, and you can follow At the same time, provide players with massage needs to warm up before the game or relax after the game to protect the players' bodies and prolong their professional life.

　　However, for ordinary sports enthusiasts, it is unlikely that they can receive professional sports massage immediately after each exercise, because masseurs cannot wait next to the sports field. Moreover, giving massage to people every exercise is actually quite expensive, so there is a great tool born from it, which can be called the "not asking for help" in the sports massage industry, that is, the self-massage artifact - "foam roller".

　　I believe many people have I have heard of foam rollers, and even used this tool. The operation method of foam rollers is very simple. Just put the parts of the body that need to be massaged on the foam roller and roll around, and use the weight of the body to press and loosen the tight muscles. However, except for the feeling of soreness and pain when rolling, what changes have happened to our body after rolling? Is there any difference between rolling or not?

　　First of studies have found that using foam rollers can temporarily increase muscle flexibility, and the effect can reach about 10 minutes. Zhong. However, can foam rollers increase flexibility for a long time? Although there are few studies in this regard, most of the conclusions are still positive. Some studies have shown that using foam rollers can increase flexibility for about two weeks. Some studies even point out that the use of foam rollers is close to the increase in joint mobility of traditional proprioceptive neuromuscular stretching technology (PNF). However, it is not known whether the length of time to use the drum is proportional to the degree of flexibility increased.

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　　Second: Impact on exercise performance?

　　Using foam roller before exercise will not have a negative impact on exercise performance. This discovery is actually very practical and important, because many exercises are All the objects need to have good joint flexibility, but static stretching before exercise will have a negative impact on exercise performance. Therefore, the current concept is not to do static stretching before exercise, but instead do dynamic stretching. However, if the foam roller has the effect of increasing flexibility and does not affect the performance of the exercise, the foam roller can be performed just like dynamic stretching and can be performed before exercise.

　　Third: For late-onset muscle soreness?

　　Use foam roller to relax yourself can reduce subjective pain feelings, and The effect of increasing the pain threshold can reduce the chance of late muscle aches 48 hours after intense exercise.

　　Fourth: Is fatigue recovery effective?

　　There are very few studies at present. Some studies have found that foam rollers have the effect of increasing parasympathetic activity and reducing sympathetic activity, which may have a positive effect on fatigue recovery.

　　Simply put, the most significant effect of foam rollers is to increase flexibility, or increase joint mobility, followed by soreness and fatigue after exercise. There are improvement effects. According to the above research results, two conclusions can be drawn:

　　First: You can use foam rollers before exercise to increase joint movement angle and not affect your exercise performance;

　　Second: You can use foam rollers after exercise to increase muscle flexibility and reduce soreness, which is conducive to fatigue recovery.

　　As for when to use foam rollers? And how long should you roll? There are no standard answers for these questions.

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　　If you are interested, please refer to 　　　　　　　Is it better to relax after muscle soreness?　 　　　　　　　　Which foam roller is better? Is it better to be soft or hard? How long is the right foam roller to buy?　 　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Is it better to relax after muscle soreness?　　　　　　　　　　Advanced self-massage principle of foam roller FOAM ROLLER