I’m generally a fan of foam rolling, but there are times when I’m not sure the rolling is helping or making things worse.

For example, the past week or so my right IT band has been bothering me when running (not biking). It doesn’t force me to change my stride but it definitely aches during and after the run, especially in downhills. So I started rolling it, along with my quads/glutes/inner thigh/etc. to try and loosen it up. Fast forward to now and it’s still bothering me. I can’t quite tell if it’s gotten better or worse, and at this point I’m wondering if all the rolling is inflaming beat up tissue (bad) or loosening up and bringing more blood flow to muscles (good).

And the problem is, it usually takes a couple days of periodic rolling before I get relief. But if the rolling is actually making things worse then it often takes a few days of no rolling for the inflammation to die down and for me to realize that was the problem. So either way I’ve got to invest a few days of no rolling or more rolling to figure out whether I’m doing the right thing or the wrong thing (and if it’s the wrong thing then I’m worse off and a few days behind).

How do you guys/gals know when rolling is doing you favors versus making things worse?