Foam rollers are becoming increasingly popular as an aid to help treat a whole range of musculoskeletal problems and also to help deal just with tired and aching muscles. There are advertisements all over the place for them. Rolling a muscle with some force over a harder or softer roller has a number of physiological effects that are beneficial to healing. The rolling can help pump lymph fluid and venous blood away from the area being rolled. The roller also has a significant affect on different trigger points that commonly form in the muscles in a range of musculoskeletal problems. Often, they are not the primary problem that is causing the issues, but they are secondary and do complicate things. Using the rollers can help with the symptoms. There are specific rollers made for different parts of the body. Athletes like to use the foam roller on muscles after hard workouts to facilitate recovery. There has been a number of research projects done on the efficacy of the foam rollers to treat a number of different conditions and they are generally all showing that there are benefits, however in some of the studies the benefits were not great.
There are even rollers that are small and made specifically for using under the foot. One such product is the PediRoller. The PediRoller has an advantage in that it can be refrigerated and used for some ice or cold therapy at the same time The PediRoller is placed on the ground and the foot is rolled backwards and forwards over the top of it. This can be particularly useful for conditions like plantar fasciitis which causes pain in the arch of the foot and under the heel. Because of the pain from the plantar fasciitis and the dysfunction that the pain can cause on the way the muscles under the arch of the foot can result in the formation of trigger points in these small muscles. This makes the pain of the plantar fasciitis feel worse than it really is. The use of a roller, whether it’s the PediRoller or not is going to be very helpful to help deal with those trigger points in the small intrinsic muscles of the arch of your feet. Also, very helpful for plantar fasciitis is using a larger roller on the calf muscles. The calf muscles, especially if they are tighter play a very important role in plantar fasciitis, so using a roller on them is always going to be of some help. To use the roller here you place the roller on the ground and then sit on the ground with your calf muscle on the roller and roll the calf muscle back and forward across the roller. This is not all you can do for plantar fasciitis as doing the roller on its own is usually not sufficient. But using it in conjunction with the main treatment can make a very big difference. Always consult a health professional if you are not happy about the way your plantar fasciitis is progressing.
For more on the PediRoller, see this information:
Article by: Craig Payne July 5, 2022