Recovery between physiologically stressful exercise bouts is paramount to athletic success (Barnett, 2006). Complete recovery is not always possible due to the repetitive nature of many athletic competitions, so utilizing the available time as effectively as possible can provide a major competitive advantage (Barnett, 2006; Bielik, 2010; Stanula et al., 2014). Massage is often utilized to enhance the recovery process (Weerapong et al., 2005), but the practicality of massage is limited in many athletic settings. Foam rolling (FR) may offer comparable benefits to massage, but with far greater accessibility.

FR involves the movement of varying limbs over cylindrical, foam objects. While limited evidence suggests that the practice does not acutely improve athletic performance despite lowering post-exercise fatigue (Healey et al., 2014), FR has been found to increase joint range of motion (ROM) while preserving strength and power (Macdonald et al., 2013). Researchers have also suggested that FR may reduce the sensation of delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) (Macdonald et al., 2014), and could expedite the restoration of athletic performance following fatiguing exercise over a multiple-day span (Macdonald et al., 2014; Pearcey et al., 2015). To our knowledge, there are no studies in the literature examining the influence of FR on recovery between exercise bouts spaced by less than 24 hours.