How to Use A Foam Roller to Get Better Mobility, Sleep & Relieve Pain with Physical Therapy.
You can experience anything, but not everything.
All pain reduction is fleeting. What happens when the pain pill wears off or the massage ends?
Circumstances or stimuli are merely mechanical, electric or chemical signals within our brain or body. They are internalized through our biochemistry and signalling pathways, and our minds decipher the message based upon the severity of the stimuli, trauma, past learning, DNA, and social context.
Only then do we have thoughts and feelings about it. We then make meaning that drives our behavior and attitude.
This is your quick guide to the mind-body connection. It’s fairly complicated and not at all easy to really understand. Nerds will call this the bio-psycho-social model of human experience.
We then experience pain, tightness, anxiety or stress. Or maybe pleasure, joy, or euphoria.
What’s it going to be?
Fortunately, there are well-being skills that don’t require drugs or willpower that nudge you in the direction of improved mind-body recovery from stress and pain.
One of these well-being skills is taking a hold of the reins of of your HPA axis (hypothalmus-pituitary-adrenal axis). Basically this is the technical term for the mind-body connection, and functions as the main autobahn of the autonomic nervous system that is in charge of our fight-or-flight response. In other words: stress response.
You can steer the the ship of your neuro-endocrine system that drives your pain response, behaviour, and inflammation with a simple, cheap tool called a foam roller.
A foam roller is a piece of high density foam, usually about 18" to 3' in length and 6–12 inches in diameter. They are found at sports stores, amazon, or therapeutic outlets and should cost between $10–30 depending upon the brand or special features.
Benefits include: more freedom of movement, better sleep, improved sports performance and fitness, and faster recovery from injuries and delayed onset muscle soreness.
What is Foam Rolling?
A non-invasive, non-harming input through our skin to downregulate our autonomic nervous system and steer our neuroendocrine system into “integrated recovery mode”.
It is a piece of high density foam, usually about 18" to 3' in length and 6–12 inches in diameter. They are found at sports stores, amazon, or therapeutic outlets and should cost between $10–30 depending upon the brand or special features.
Foam rollers are very cheap tools to get into your body and out of your head, allowing you to be in the present moment and improving your sense of well-being through it’s biochemical and circulatory effects.
The foam roller is a specific and powerful mechanical stimulus that actually alters our biochemistry without drugs and improves circulation.
Without expensive co-pays or appointments it allows people to take charge of how they feel in their body and achieve greater freedom of movement.
Functional outcomes of regular use of the foam roller include:
- Improved range of motion of both joints and muscles
- Faster recovery from exercise, sport specific demands
- Decreased delayed onset muscle soreness
- Decreased tissue sensitivity due to trauma, injury, or chronic pain
- Potent antidote to frequent forward head flexed spine postures we find ourselves required to be in with our modern lifestyle
- Self-efficacy. The foam roller can be performed without the need for a therapist nearby.
- Integrated Recovery. Mind-body and holistic method for improved body awareness.
How Does it Achieve These Benefits?
Despite it’s powerful feeling, the foam roller does not modify the length of muscles, fascia, or any other body part or “break up fascia”. Multiple studies show that the force needed to actually deform fascia or muscle would either break the skin or require months or years of serial casting.
The skin is rich in sensory receptors that transform mechanical stimuli from the foam roller into chemical (slower, hormonal) and electric (faster, brain & spinal cord) messages that induce relaxation and recovery.
A host of neurotransmitters and hormones are released during foam rolling including the upregulation of dopamine and seratonin, and the downregulation of cortisol.
This effect modulates the HPA-axis (mind-body connection) and results in increased vagal tone, downregulation of stress, and therefore decreased body pain and mental overwhelm.
- Dopamine is our anticipatory and feel good neurotransmitter that motivates us to perform exercise or mindfulness practice we can piggyback onto the good feeling following the warm-up of the foam roller. No willpower required! Shown to be increased up to 30%.
- Serotonin has a major role in modulating pain perception and regulates mood and sleep. This makes the foam roller great for post workout cool-downs and also a great ritual to improve sleep. Shown to be increased 28%.
- Cortisol is produced in conjunction with adrenaline while under stress. While extremely helpful in the short term to be in “fight or flight mode”, prolonged exposure can lead to a host of problems including obesity, anxiety, and depression. Using the foam roller can help us get into “integrated recovery mode” after a workout or stressful episode to begin healing. Shown to decrease 31%.
How wonderful it is we can have this host of positive neuroendocrine effects with simply using a foam roller a for a few minutes a few times per day?
The foam roller is a specific and powerful mechanical stimulus that actually alters our biochemistry without drugs. It also helps improve blood flow to specific regions aiding in preparation or cooldown for exercise, and it allows time and practice for body reflection and body awareness.
But remember, it’s a fantastic adjunct to the meat and potatoes of well-being: exercise, mindfulness, healthy connected relationships, and sleep. It is helpful as both a motivational tool to reduce the need for willpower to get out and exercise harder, and also as a recovery aid to improve your well-being skills.
Who is it For?
Daily use of the foam roller is safe for almost everyone with minimal side effects.
It’s best for active people who want to include quick, effective warmups and cooldowns to their workouts.
It’s also great for those who hate stretching but want to work on their mobility, as most of the benefits of stretching can be achieved in just a few short minutes with a foam roller.
People who have chronic pain problems and muscle or joint stiffness benefit greatly from frequent use of the foam roller to modify their symptoms.
Insomniacs that are getting less than the recommended 7–9 hours of sleep per night also could greatly benefit from a nightly ritual of foam roller massage.
Pregnant women or individuals who want to avoid use of drugs to reduce stress or musculo-skeletal pain problems.
Officeworkers glued to their computers with stiff posture and muscle pain, as as it helps you temporarily reverse your posture and upregulate your happy hormones and loosens up your neck, back and shoulders.
Who is it Not For?
People with severe fibromyalgia that cannot tolerate mechanical stimuli well and people with advanced osteoporosis. Additionally anyone with bone fractures or active infections should refrain from using it near point of injury. Consult your physician as always for exercise advice.
Practical Foam Rolling
A pre-workout foam rolling session or quick office stretch break should not take much more than 2–3 minutes. For use as a cooldown, take your time to relax, breathe and roll out your body over the course of 4–5 minutes, any longer than that and you will have diminishing returns.
There are some sore spots on most people’s bodies that respond well to foam rolling with both a rolling or acupressure technique. These places include the: calf muscles, hamstrings and inner thigh region, side of the buttocks (deep glutes and lateral rotators of the hip), and the middle back and latissimmus dorsi region.
General rolling is simply slowly rolling your body over a body part adding as much or little pressure as you prefer. The amount of pressure should be adequate to feel pressure and a little heat, but not so much that you are grimacing in pain. For acupressure, you keep the weight of your body part over the roller usually where there is mild discomfort and then begin slowly flexing the muscle affected about 4–8 times until the sensation of discomfort slowly diminishes. Remember to put a check in your mental victory column when you start to feel your body relaxing! The little wins add up!
Move Toward Your True North,
💖Beyond Exercises
By Morgan Fielder from BeyondExercises.com.
Author profile: Morgan Fielder is an evangelist for play and DOD civilian physical therapist living near Ramstein AFB raising two gorgeous girls, wife of a rebel, serial expat, and is actively involved in the German community through several organizations. Visit her community project at cornholeuropa.com to learn more.
Research:
Int J Neurosci. 2005 Oct;115(10):1397–413.
Stretching ITB: Falvey EC, Clark RA, Franklyn-Miller A, Bryant AL, Briggs C, McCrory PR. Iliotibial band syndrome: an examination of the evidence behind a number of treatment options. Scand J Med Sci Sports. 2010 Aug;20(4):580–7. PubMed #19706004. ❐
Serotonin and depression: BMJ 2015;350:h1771
