Should You Foam Roll Before You Train?

Yes…and no.

Whether or not you should foam roll before you train comes down to three main factors:

 

1. Your current movement capacity and mobility level.
2. Whether or not you get any results from foam rolling (not everyone does).
3. Personal preference.

Let’s cover each one of these factors individually.

 

Movement Capacity and Mobility

If you don’t have the best movement capacity (this is probably true for anyone that’s inactive or sits at a desk all day) – or if you can’t get in to the proper positions needed to train effectively – it’s probably not a bad idea to foam roll before your workouts.

Strength, stability, and motor control aside, a common reason for a lack of movement capacity and/or mobility is muscle tension.

That is, a lot of us are walking around with muscles that are constantly “on.”

What foam rolling does is help alleviate this tension.

It isn’t removing scar tissue.

It isn’t breaking up adhesions.

It isn’t lengthening a muscle belly.

It’s down-regulating neural activity.

When we down-regulate neural activity, it increases our range of motion.

And an increased range of motion – if we were missing that range before – allows us to train more safely and effectively.

 

Results

With the above being said, not everyone experiences benefits from foam rolling.

This is rare (at least in my experience), as most people who foam roll appear to experience some sort of physiological benefit (or maybe they just think they do), but there are some people who legitimately don’t get any results from foam rolling.

If that’s the case, foam rolling before a workout probably isn’t a good use of your time.

That time could be spent on things that do produce beneficial results, such as a thorough dynamic warm-up, one or two breathing drills, a few more warm-up sets with the main movement of each training session, etc.

 

Personal Preference

Finally, the other thing that needs to be taken in to account is personal preference.

Personally, I hate foam rolling before I train.

It isn’t because I don’t see benefits from foam rolling.

It isn’t because I don’t think foam rolling is a useful tool to be included in a warm-up.

And it isn’t because foam rolling looks silly (you can’t tell me that it doesn’t).

It’s because foam rolling relaxes me, and being relaxed right before I do a heavy set of deadlifts is NOT conducive to a higher level of performance (for me anyway).

If I foam roll, it’s either after I train, or right before I go to bed.

That’s what works for me.

That’s what I feel allows me to reap the most benefits from foam rolling without creating negatives somewhere else.

And, at the end of the day, that’s what I’m willing to stick with.

In your case, you have to figure out what works best for YOU.

If foam rolling before you train gets you in the right mindset, allows you to get in better positions, or makes you feel like a freakin rock-star, foam roll before you train.

Seriously, there’s nothing wrong with that.

But if it doesn’t – if it doesn’t do any of that stuff and you find that foam rolling before you train is actually hindering your ability to display a high level of performance – don’t do it.

There are a ton of ways you can warm-up before you train.

Foam rolling does not have to be one of them.