The Magic ‘Foam Roll’ The fashionable tool that magically ‘stretches and soothes’ the muscles right? Turns out you might not be using this piece of equipment the way you think you should.

Many PTs have theories on how we should use this apparatus to benefit certain conditions. Here’s how I use it and how I think you should use it.

First of all, we are all told to roll our ITB (Ilio Tibia Band) because this gets tight and can cause knee or hip pain. To some extent that advice is correct – that particular band of tissue can become inflamed and irritate the side of the knee or the hip.
However, the ITB is something we can’t affect through foam rolling or certain stretches as it’s a thick band of ligament that cannot be loosened. There are other methods of decreasing ITB syndrome but foam rolling isn’t one of them and I will discuss these methods in another article.

So how should we use it and on what particular muscles? I can explain this by imagining using the foam roller as your therapist’s thumbs – I.e You know in Sports Massage when your therapist digs their thumbs into a specific area of tissue and holds that pressure for a specific length of time? Well, the foam roll also should be used in this way. Let’s take the calves as an example – we all have a trigger or tender points in this particular muscle group. Use the foam roll to pinpoint a particular specific area in the muscle that feels tender ( this is the only time you should be ‘rolling’ the muscle’) once that trigger point has been located apply pressure using your body weight – there are many videos online showing examples how to do this but remember there is no right or wrong way to apply this pressure, just make sure you’re in a comfortable position.

At this point, you should be looking for a pain scale of around 7/10 (10/10 being excruciating pain) once this number has been reached stay in this position until that sensation reduces to around 3/10. Then you may slowly use the foam roll to move up, down or a lateral movement to increase the pain up to 7/10. Then again stay in that one position. Do not spend any longer than 2 mins in one area or use the foam roller on one muscle group for longer than 5.

When should I use the foam roller? This is debatable – my advice is to use the roller after exercise when the muscles are warmer but if exercise isn’t in your program then use the roller at a more conservative approach when you start. Certainly don’t use your roller more than once a day – the tissue needs to recover after you’ve manipulated it.

I will be discussing how the foam roller works physiologically and posting videos on how best to use the tool in specific areas