To Roll To Slide: the effects of self-myofascial release on skin temperature, range of motion and perceived well-being

Self-myofascial release is widely promoted as a way of increasing ROM, strength and conditioning. There are many variations of rolling or actions such as shearing and sliding, but does it matter?

Foam rolling mainly involves compressive pressure to the muscle, while in manual massage, there is an additional sliding or shearing forces, i.e. mechanical forces that act a skin area in a parallel direction to that of the body’s surface. Sliding pressures rely on the direction of the movement applied with the tool and imitate transverse and deep tissues stimulation.

Researcher from Lyon, France investigated the acute effects of various foam rolling interventions targeting quadriceps muscles. And asked whether adding sliding pressure matters?

A blinded randomized control pilot trial was conducted with 42 healthy weightlifting athletes over 4 weeks. Participants were randomly allocated to one of the four intervention (120 s massage routine) groups: foam rolling, roller massager, foam rolling with axial sliding pressures, foam rolling with transverse sliding pressures.

They measured the impact on knee range of motion, skin temperature and subjective scores of the perceived heat, range of motion, muscle pain and relaxation. Measurements were carried on before, after and up to 15 min (follow-up) after the rolling.

The results showed that the range of motion increased immediately after all types of foam rolling, but progressively returned back to the pre-rolling values within the 15 min after the massage. Foam rolling was the most effective intervention to increase skin temperature from thermographic measures. The increase in perceived heat was comparable in all treatments.

The authors found that combining foam rolling with sliding pressures did not yield additional benefits from the objective measures.

Reference: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8063437/