All the Comforts of Foam

I remember the moment very clearly: I was standing in City Sports trying to decide whether to shell out $24.99 for a three-foot long cylinder of industrial strength polystyrene foam. To be honest, I didn't know if it was polystyrene, I just knew it was a material and a color not found in nature, and it promised to help me release the knots and tension in my beaten-up muscles. Ah, but it would be such a waste to bring it home if it just sat in a corner, neglected like any other trendy piece of exercise equipment that promised much but delivered little.

That was over a year ago. In the end, I bought the exotic cylinder ("No thanks, I don't need a bag"), and brought it home. And then, despite my early misgivings I fell in love with my foam roller.

I knew that muscular therapy -- targeted massage -- could help heal muscles in ways that stretching could not, but regular massage felt like a huge luxury for the runner on a budget. The foam roller didn't take the place of getting a good massage, but it sure helped. It was also enjoyable in a way that few other "maintenance" activities were. It was always a chore to stretch after runs, but I actually looked forward to the post-exercise pleasure of "myofascial release" that I could get by rolling out quads, hamstrings, glutes, IT bands, calves, and other muscles whose names I have never learned.

Anyway, I thought of all this when I saw an article in the NY Times (Becoming Your Own Massage Therapist) that described the growing use of foam rollers and other devices for doing self-massage.

On the one hand, I find myself nodding along with the runner quoted in the article who calls her foam roller "her best friend." On the other hand, the proliferation of doo-dads for "sticking," rolling, and kneading yourself does raise questions about whether it's always a good thing to bypass the massage professionals. To quote the article:

"For all its advantages, self-massage has its limitations. Cassidy Phillips, founder of Trigger Point Performance Therapy, considers it the equivalent of oral hygiene. 'You brush away some plaque yourself,' he said, 'but you still go to the dentist for a thorough cleaning.'"

True, although flossing is not nearly as much fun as spending some quality time with the roller.

An older article from Running Times (The (Almost) Magical Foam Roller) makes the case that rollers should be seen as a supplement to the traditional stretching that we should be doing. According to the article,

"In the case of muscle knots, stretching alone is not enough. When stretching a muscle with knots, you are only stretching the healthy muscle tissue. The knot remains a knot, laughing in the face of the stretch."

Probably the safe thing to say is that self-massage is another tool for managing the daily shocks that our flesh is heir to, and is a particularly useful tool for those of us whose bodies lack the resilience they had when we first started abusing them. It doesn't take the place of stretching or for that matter, for being smart about our training. And it is still not a miracle cure for all that ails us. For miracles, I still go to the massage therapist and the podiatrist.