Does Foam Rolling Actually Work
What The Science Says About Foam Rolling And Why The Results Never Last
Foam rolling feels good. Nobody disputes that. The pressure, the release, the temporary improvement in how a muscle feels. The problem is that foam rolling does not fix the thing you think it is fixing. And the reason it feels good is not the reason you have been told.
What Foam Rolling Actually Does To Your Body
The standard explanation is that foam rolling breaks up knots or adhesions, restoring normal tissue quality. This does not hold up under scrutiny. The amount of force required to deform fascial tissue is approximately 900 kilograms to create a 1% change in fascial length. Your body weight on a foam roller is not producing that force. What foam rolling actually does is stimulate mechanoreceptors in the skin and fascia. This neurological input temporarily increases your pain tolerance and reduces the sensation of tightness.
Why The Results Do Not Last
Thirty minutes after foam rolling, the tightness returns. The tightness was never a tissue problem. It was a neurological problem. Your brain tightened that muscle for a reason, usually to protect a joint that lacks stability from an inhibited muscle somewhere else, a principle central to Muscle Activation Techniques (MAT). You overrode the alarm with sensory input, but the reason for the alarm is still there.
The Real Cause Of Chronic Muscle Tightness
If your IT band is tight because your pelvis is rotated and your glute medius is neurologically inhibited, no amount of foam rolling will resolve the tightness. The brain will tighten it again within minutes because the instability at the hip has not been addressed. You are treating the messenger and ignoring the message.
What The Research Says About Foam Rolling
Research supports foam rolling as a sensory tool that temporarily increases range of motion and reduces perceived stiffness. It has value for warm up purposes. But the evidence does not support foam rolling as a corrective tool that fixes chronic tightness or changes tissue quality in any lasting way.
What To Do Instead Of Foam Rolling
The corrective approach is to identify why the muscle is tight. What joint is it protecting? What muscle is inhibited? Once you activate the inhibited muscle through targeted isometric work, the tight muscle releases permanently because the brain no longer needs it to guard the joint. MOVECHECK does not include foam rolling in its corrective protocols because every exercise targets the root cause of tightness, not the symptom.
See This In Your Own Body
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