Acute Effects of a Single-Session of Full-Body Foam Rolling on Heart Rate Variability
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background: Self-myofascial release has been demonstrated to increase relaxation and improve blood flow, yet it is unknown if it can elicit an acute effect on heart rate variability (HRV). Purpose: This study aimed to determine if a single-bout of foam rolling could increase parasympathetic activity as measured by HRV. Methods: Twenty (20) participants volunteered and their baseline HRV was assessed using a finger sensor while lying supine, and then a second measure was recorded with them sitting upright with feet on the ground. This study utilized a practical HRV collection method designed for use in the field settings, and the data is recorded in arbitrary units (A.U.). Par-ticipants then oscillated on a closed-cell cylindrical foam roller using their body weight on the triceps surae, hamstrings, quadriceps, lumbar spine, and pectoral muscles each for 60 sec. Participants first massaged the right limb and then repeated on the matching muscle group on the left before continuing to the next region. Follow-up HRV measurements were recorded using the same procedures. Results: Paired samples t tests assessing pre- and post-foam–rolling HRV measures in supine and seated positions revealed no difference between supine measures (p = .05, d = 0.21), nor the seated measures (p = .27, d = 0.17) among all participants. When sexes were analyzed separately, males showed a significant decrease in HRV in supine positions (p = .03, d = 0.33), but females did not (p = .55, d = 0.09). Conclusions: The single bout of foam rolling on large muscle groups did not increase parasympathetic activity as hypothesized. Males and females respond-ed differently in supine positions, but no difference was present in seated positions across sexes. The task of self-massage may have prevented the anticipated response f rom the massage. Further research should investigate if passive massage is more effective on HRV response.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".