The Acute Effect of Foam Rolling on Eccentrically-Induced Muscle Damage

Abstract

Previous studies have shown significant improvement in muscle soreness and muscle function loss after 300-s foam rolling intervention two days after intense exercise. However, this duration is assumed to be too long, so investigating the effect of short-term duration foam rolling intervention on an eccentrically-damaged muscle is needed. This study aimed to eccentrically induce muscle damage in the leg extensors, and to detect the acute effect of 90-s foam rolling on muscle soreness and muscle function of the quadriceps muscle. We enrolled 17 healthy and nonathlete male volunteers. They performed a bout of eccentric exercise of the knee extensors with the dominant leg and received 90-s foam rolling intervention of the quadriceps two days after the eccentric exercise. The dependent variables were measured before the eccentric exercise (baseline), and before (preintervention) and after foam rolling intervention (postintervention), two days after the eccentric exercise. The results show that the preintervention muscle soreness and muscle strength values were significantly increased, compared with the baseline values, whereas the postintervention values were significantly decreased, compared with the preintervention values. Furthermore, 90-s of foam rolling intervention could improve muscle soreness and muscle function loss.