Acute effects of different foam rolling volumes in the interset rest period on maximum repetition performance.
Estêvão Rios Monteiro, Andrew Vigotsky, Jakob Škarabot and 5 others
PMID 30931039WHAT IT FOUND
Passive rest between sets of knee extensions produced more repetitions than foam rolling the quadriceps for 60, 90, or 120 seconds.
Foam rolling for 120 seconds produced fewer repetitions than 60 or 90 seconds.
Key findings
01On average, passive rest produced 9.1%, 8.6%, and 13.8% more repetitions than 60, 90, and 120 seconds of foam rolling, respectively.
02Foam rolling for 120 seconds produced fewer repetitions than 60 or 90 seconds, while 60 and 90 seconds did not differ.
03In the fourth set, passive rest produced 9.1%, 8.6%, and 13.8% more repetitions than 60, 90, and 120 seconds of foam rolling, and 60 and 90 seconds produced 9.7% and 6.2% more repetitions than 120 seconds.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTs
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What it does not show
The study used only recreationally active females who were free from functional limitations or medical conditions, so it does not show what happens in people with functional limitations or medical conditions. Only female participants were used, so the results cannot be extrapolated to males. The exercise was a single-joint knee extension machine task, so it may not apply to squats, walking, or other functional movements. The participants chose their own foam rolling pace, so the number and duration of each roll were not tightly controlled. Foam rolling itself may have fatigued participants or prevented the quadriceps from resting, which could have contributed to the lower repetitions. The study compared foam rolling with passive rest rather than a sham group.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest and received no financial or material support.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this as evidence that foam rolling should be avoided in all physical therapy. It tested only rolling the quadriceps between sets of a knee extension machine in healthy recreationally active females, and it did not test patient outcomes, other exercises, or rolling before or after training.