This time, I'd like to talk about muscle pain and roller massage.
How do you deal with muscle pain?
If you are not exercising until you get sore muscles in the first place, you may be training at the ideal load, or you may not be training at all.
There are many popular ways to deal with muscle soreness, and perhaps it is the sports industry that often sees trendy = good.
In this study, we investigate whether roller massage, one of the popular methods, is beneficial for muscle pain. This is a study that investigates whether roller massage, one of the popular methods, is beneficial for muscle pain.
The study
Roller massage has become a popular intervention in sports settings to treat muscle pain and stiffness and improve post-exercise recovery.
However, evidence for this method has been limited.
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of a single session of roller massage applied with controlled force after an exercise-induced muscle injury protocol on muscle recovery.
A randomized controlled trial was conducted using a repeated measures design.
Thirty-six young men completed four sets of six eccentric movements of the elbow flexors at 90°/s, with a rest interval of 90 seconds between sets.
The participants performed
1. roller massage
2. placebo
3. control group
and were randomly assigned to one of the three groups.
Maximal isometric voluntary contraction (MIVC), delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS), range of motion (ROM), and muscle thickness were measured at baseline and at 24, 48, and 72 hours post-exercise.
There was no significant group by time interaction between MIVC and ROM.
There was also a significant group due to the time interaction of muscle thickness, but the post-test did not find any significant differences between the groups.
DOMS was seen to recover in 72 hours with the roller massage and control groups, while the placebo group showed no recovery from DOMS over 72 hours.
Discussion
The study did not show beneficial results on endpoints such as delayed onset muscle soreness and joint range of motion with roller massage, but this may be reversed with additional research.
To begin with, to explain the situation in which delayed onset muscle soreness occurs, the beginning of muscle soreness is a short-term "swelling" situation.
Capillaries and other blood vessels become blocked due to muscle contraction, and swelling occurs due to the infiltration of plasma proteins and inflammatory cells.
In this condition, the muscle's role as a "pump" for blood flow is diminished, and delayed onset muscle pain can be prolonged.When the pump function is reduced, pressure from the outside causes nitric oxide to be released, which lowers the blood concentration in the muscle, a phenomenon caused by physiology.
Since it has not been confirmed that roller massage has any effect on this phenomenon, the results of this study are said to be ineffective.
Although the study was limited to the upper extremities, another study found similar results with foam rollers on the lower extremities, with little change in the increase in joint range of motion.
From my own experience, I can't find anything to refute the results of this study, so whether or not you actively use the roller is your own responsibility.
Medeiros FVA, Bottaro M, Martins WR, et al. The effects of one session of roller massage on recovery from exercise-induced muscle damage: A randomized J Exerc Sci Fit. 2020;18(3):148-154. doi:10.1016/j.jesf.2020.05.002
Conclusion
The results of this study suggest that roller massage can hardly be expected to have an effect on delayed onset muscle soreness.
I wondered if the difference in performance of the rollers would change this result. I wondered if the difference in the performance of the rollers would change this result, but since the difference in materials and options does not seem to make a big difference in the approach to the body itself, there may be no difference in performance.
I have seen several different studies on the methodology for delayed onset muscle soreness, but the one that seems to be most effective is "sleep.
