Foam Rolling

[Ilovemilk]

Do you guys foam roll? I started doing it regularily after my leg workouts because they would get really sore the next day. Now after a hard leg work out I do my regular stretches a spend a few minutes foam rolling. I hardly ever feel sore after anymore.

This is the one I got :

Do you guys foam roll? Which muscles do you you roll?

 

[Jrahien]

I foam roll predominantly for my legs. Since I'm a runner who tends to neglect flexibility, it means putting in the extra work well after my workouts to hold off any chronic injuries. (I'm working on the bad habit.) I use my regular foam roller for my quads, hamstrings, and IT bands. I find that I can't put enough weight in it to roll my calves, though, so I use a smaller, frozen metal water bottle, which also gives me the immediate icing effect as I go. (I'd recommend trying that one on any problems spots, actually.)

I've never found foam rolling or stretching to do much for DOMS, however.

 

[Goldfish]

I foam roll when I feel the need for it. When I tried doing Smolov Jr, this meant a lot of foam rolling, most days of the week. But since then I've barely touched the foam roller. My gym's ultra-high-budget (note sarcasm) -- we've got one regular blue foam roller, and a couple tubes of PVC pipe. I've never used the pipes, but apparently they're a lot more intense than the foam, so I'm not urgently keen on trying them.

ETA: It's hard to say for certain if foam rolling alleviates major DOMS, since the soreness doesn't decrease until the day after, but most of the times when I've felt the need to use a foam roller, it's felt like I won't be able to sit down/stand up easily for the next 3-4 days, and after foam rolling I'll wake up the next morning and my legs will be fine. It's hard to be 100% sure that the foam rolling is what makes that grade of soreness go away, but it seems to be the case. I'll also note that there's such a thing as too much foam rolling, and I've learned the hard way that doing an excessive amount of it will actually give me DOMS, even though a small dose seems to be a big aid in recovery.

 

[CrazyOldMan]

As a direct opposite to Jrahien I strech a lot and don't do any foam rolling.
It is great for opening the viens, clearing out crud and easing tension, as well as avoiding potential future injuries, I had enough of those years ago and they hurt a lot.
I am not going to say foam rolling is good or bad, because I don't know. I do know the results described by Goldfish for foam rolling are what I get from stretching, and I think our sanity levels are similar, though maybe favourably in his direction.

 

[Jrahien]

I'll also note that there's such a thing as too much foam rolling, and I've learned the hard way that doing an excessive amount of it will actually give me DOMS, even though a small dose seems to be a big aid in recovery.

Yeah, foam rolling IS technically a manual self-massage, so you're damaging the muscle fibers in much the same way as working out does, thus the DOMS. That being said, rolling is great for breaking up scar tissue and realigning it in the proper direction if you have any complications from an old injury.

 

[Goldfish]

As a direct opposite to Jrahien I strech a lot and don't do any foam rolling.
It is great for opening the viens, clearing out crud and easing tension, as well as avoiding potential future injuries, I had enough of those years ago and they hurt a lot.
I am not going to say foam rolling is good or bad, because I don't know. I do know the results described by Goldfish for foam rolling are what I get from stretching, and I think our sanity levels are similar, though maybe favourably in his direction.

I suspect that a sensible approach would be to do both stretching and foam rolling. I like the idea of ART stretching, which attempts to achieve the effects of both stretching and foam rolling/massage at the same time, and I've seen a girl literally add at least 6 inches onto her posterior chain flexibility after one session of it. I've found that stretching helps me a lot with immediate relief of tension and DOMS, and foam rolling seems to help with day-after effects. I can recall a time when stretching seemed to help with day-after effects, too, but since learning to train in such a way as to minimise the frequency and severity of DOMS (most of the time) I haven't noticed much difference in regular training one way or the other.