A few years ago, I wrote the episode called The Many Benefits of Foam Rolling where I taught you how to foam roll your body into a happier, healthier, and higher-performing version of itself. Well, the research and science around foam rolling have progressed since then, and companies like TriggerPoint are creating more and more interesting ways to foam roll, so I thought it was time to revisit this topic, with the guidance of a true foam rolling expert named Michael Cummings.
Michael Cummings has been a professional in the sports and fitness industry for more than 20 years. He has owned and operated gyms, yoga studios, and wellness centers. He has designed and built the infrastructure for several successful health club. He has consulted for many of the industry's top brands on product development, education, and programming. He created the sport and fitness training line of products for SKLZ and he has over 50 patents in his name. Michael also consults with governments, Olympic committees, and the military.
In this article, Michael (or “MC”) is going to give us a master class in one of my favourite things to do pre, post, or even during a workout -- foam rolling!
How foam rolling affects our bodies
When we foam roll, two things happen to our bodies: shearing and compression.
The difference is with compression. Imagine pushing your thumb into your forearm. So you're pressing through your skin, the superficial deep fascia, and through your muscle. With shearing, it's basically like gripping your wrist and turning. What that's doing is taking the top layer of tissue and moving it in one direction, while the lower level or the deep layer goes in the opposite direction. In other words, two different components moving parallel with one another but in different directions. If you put your hands together and move one back in one forward, that's shearing.
One of the things that explains the effects of shearing is this pretty simple study done by Helene Langevin. In the study, she asked participants to bend over and touch their toes. She then did an ultrasound of the backs of all the participants. In the people who had back pain while bending forward, she saw what she called the "Velcro effect" on the ultrasound. That's when their soft tissues basically adhered or gripped together and didn't move, whereas in the people who were able to touch their toes without pain, these layers slid and glided over one and there was no stickiness.
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