Award Date

8-1-2016

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Kinesiology and Nutrition Sciences

First Committee Member

Kara Radzak

Second Committee Member

Richard Tandy

Third Committee Member

Michelle Samuel

Fourth Committee Member

Lori Candela

Number of Pages

73

Abstract

The use of a foam roller is growing in popularity as a part of a warm-up in order to prepare for activity. The current research, however, lacks an accepted timing duration for how long an athlete should foam roll prior to activity in order to increase range of motion (ROM). In order to guide clinical practice, it is necessary to establish a standard for how long an athlete should foam roll a muscle group with the goal to increase ROM. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to compare hamstring flexibility changes following a single foam rolling bout, performed for durations of 30 seconds or 2-minutes, to controls. In order to execute this, 42 physically active males and females between the ages of 18-33 years were randomly assigned to either a 30 second, 2-minute, or control group. These participants reported to the Sports Injury Research Center (SIRC) for two testing sessions separated by one week. On day one, participants provided informed consent followed by filling out an eligibility questionnaire. After this, anthropometric measures were taken along with baseline flexibility measured via passive hip flexion ROM. This day also served as the familiarization day for the participants, where they were introduced to the foam rolling intervention, watched an instructional video and practiced the proposed method of foam rolling. Once all participants reported for day one, they were evenly distributed into one of three groups (30 seconds, 2-minutes, or control) by gender. In order to establish that there were no statistical differences for baseline flexibility between groups, a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed no statistical differences (p=0.79). On day two, data collection consisted of: 1) pre-warm-up flexibility, 2) 5-minute warm-up at a self selected walking pace, 3) post-warm-up flexibility, 4) assigned intervention, 5) reported perceived pressure on the foam roller, 6) immediately post-intervention flexibility, 7) 10 minutes post-intervention flexibility. During flexibility measurements, participants were taken into passive hip flexion ROM by an investigator until the participant verbalized that they had reached “perceived maximum stretch.” A separate investigator who is a Certified Athletic Trainer took all goniometric measurements of all participants. Both of the previously mentioned investigators were blinded to the intervention that the participant will take part in. During the assigned intervention, a third investigator monitored the participant to ensure proper foam rolling technique at a cadence of 40 beats per minute and provide feedback as necessary. Those in the control group long sat for 2-minutes during their intervention. A 3x5 mixed model factorial ANOVA showed no significant differences within subjects for time and intervention (p=0.788). For all groups combined, there was a significant increase in hamstring ROM from baseline to post warm-up (p=0.002), immediately post warm-up (p

Keywords

flexibility; foam roller; foam rolling; myofascial release; range of motion; self-myofascial release

Disciplines

Kinesiology | Medicine and Health Sciences

File Format

pdf

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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