FAQs

What if Rolling doesn’t feel good?

Massage sensations don’t feel “good” to everyone, and in fact some people consider the massage sensation painful. We just talked about tolerable sensations in our last section. Part of the rolling process is about reframing our relationship to physical sensations, and practice embracing the sensations so that we may open ourselves up to change. A lot of this refers to acknowledging the difference between “pain” and “strong, tolerable, productive sensations.” In some cases, those of us who have been in chronic pain are unsure of the difference between pain and productive sensations. One of my goals is to help you understand that when your body is fighting and tensing up against the roller, this will definitely result in pain. Rolling is only productive when the pressure is tolerable enough for us to fully surrender to it. We highly recommend Soft, OPTP brand Pro Rollers for this practice for those areas where gentler pressure is needed.

Why does foam rolling hurt while doing it?

Any time you’re trying to change the current state of your tissues, it can feel uncomfortable. Just as if you’re working out and “feeling the burn” because you’re literally trying to firm your tissue, compressing it with a foam roller can also “burn” because you’re trying to soften it, as does stretching because you’re trying to lengthen it. Different treatments of your tissue feel differently, but they all feel like something.

What does the foam roller actually do?

The foam roller compresses your tissues. By applying prolonged compression to your soft tissue, trigger points and tension are released by way of heat, ischemia/hyperemia (blood rushing out and back into the area) and forced softening (think meat tenderizing). When there are trigger points in the fascia, entire fascial lines can get tripped up and feel the effects, tightening up other trigger points as a result. Fascial stretching can open up the fascial lines but cannot always completely unravel trigger points, which is when pressure applied to them is the best way to release them.

Why do I get sore after working out, stretching or foam rolling?

If you’re in a particular routine and you change it, your fascial system will always try and go back to the state it was in before because that’s your body’s idea of what “normal” is. Your fascia is an extremely sensitive system, in the way that it adapts to whatever activity you provide it with, whether that’s constant sitting or avid running. After several days of doing the same activity, your fascia starts to read that as your body’s new normal activity, and it trains itself to be able to do that activity as efficiently as possible. Soreness is your myofascia’s way of trying to contract back into its “normal” state, unless you keep up your activity to create a new state of normalcy. Extreme soreness is a sign that you’ve tried to change your tissues too much too fast, in which case they will inflame and act as though they are injured. A soft foam roller can assist in blood flow to the tissues, which can speed up the recovery. Sometimes though, the body just needs hydration and a couple days of rest before it can be restored.