Those who have interacted with me, likely know I am a huge advocate for foam rolling. I personally have found it far more beneficial than just stretching; particularly for chronicly tight muscles. Recently, I had seen a post on social media discussing this study: “Expert Consensus on the Contraindications and Cautions of Foam Rolling-An International Delphi Study”.
I immediately clicked the link to the study, since it’s always good to be at the tip-top of new knowledge. It did not take long for my curiosity to be taken over by frustration.
“Panel participants were predominantly sports scientists, physiotherapists, and medical professionals. Consensus on contraindications was reached for open wounds (73% agreement) and bone fractures (84%). Consensus on cautions was achieved for local tissue inflammation (97%), deep vein thrombosis (97%), osteomyelitis (94%), and myositis ossificans (92%). The highest impact/severity of an adverse event caused by contraindication/cautions was estimated for bone fractures, deep vein thrombosis, and osteomyelitis.”
This excerpt was the results of their findings.
I found this very frustrating because I found these cautions/contraindications to be common sense. (Cautions mean to be ‘careful’ and contraindications mean ‘do not do!’.)
If you are struggling to understand some of the fancy terms… allow me to help.
‘Open wound’ is pretty basic, essentially any kind of cut, stabbing injury, etc that has no healed yet.
‘Bone fracture’ is a broken bone, regardless of whether it breaks through the skin or not.
How many people actually think to themselves: “I have a broken arm, foam rolling should help heal it!” I really hope the answer is no one.
‘Local tissue inflammation’ is a form of swelling.
‘Deep vein thrombosis’ is a blood clot (thrombus) that has formed in a deep vein — most common in the lower legs.
‘Osteomyelitis’ is inflammation or swelling of a bone. This can occur due to injury that exposes the bone the bacteria or infections travelling in the blood.
‘Myositis ossificans’ is a condition when bone tissue begins to form in muscle or other soft tissue. This can be due to blunt force injury or repetitive trauma.
These 4 could be tricky. The last 3 are conditions that a person may not know they have. Particularly if they have pain in a particular area with no logical reason, or chronic prolonged pain after an injury. I do feel like the average person would go to a doctor or hospital if they have been experienced prolonged pain after an incident rather than foam rolling.
Local tissue inflammation, in my opinion, is also tricky. If it is acute (very recently occurred) obviously avoid foam rolling that area, but if it’s chronic and doesn’t seem to be fully going away, there is a chance that there are tiny restrictions and tight muscles causing the inflammation to not dissipate as it should. This is where I feel foam rolling could be beneficial to help break up those restrictions and loosen the muscles to get fluids moving again.
In conclusion, I found this study to be a little silly and waste of time, but the more knowledge that is out there for people, the better, I guess.
As with all home and self care, try to be reasonable in WHY you are using it. If your legs are tight after a leg workout, feel free to foam roll. If you back is sore from being a computer at work all day, foam rolling will help. But if bones are sticking out of your body or you’ve had a serious injury of any kind, make sure everything is healing properly before tackling the pain on your own.
Click Here to read the study for yourself.
What did you think of the study? I could absolutely be interpreting it incorrectly, let me know your thoughts below…
Take care,
xoxo Amy
