I’ve been familiar with foam rolling and myofascial release for a few years now, starting when I was told I had a lot of inflexibility that needed to go away.  If you’re unfamiliar with myofascial release, check out this article.  It’s from wikipedia, but it gives a pretty thorough overview.  Basically, though, you maneuver yourself over a foam roller, which compresses the tissues beneath, allowing for connective tissue (fascia) restrictions to loosen.  This includes trigger points, which gives a lot of people chronic pain.

I hadn’t done much of it recently, but felt motivated to get back into it.  And having experienced good things with it in the past, I made some time after a workout.

Bad move.  Well, good for the body, but bad for my pain receptors.  Man, that stuff is super painful in some areas.  My calves, lateral quads and IT band (outside of each thigh) hurt so bad.  Me and my buddy Andrew laughed at each other as we made various whimpers and cries of pain as we foam rolled following our workout.  

I felt great after it was over, and most of the pain is just due to the fact that I haven’t done any foam rolling in a while.  Once you do it consistently for maybe a week, you loosen up and the pain becomes a pleasant massaging sensation.  So, if you can suck it up for about a week, foam rolling will really increase your soft tissue quality and your flexibility.  On the other hand, they are spawned from the devil himself.  Tough call.