Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. This article was submitted to Exercise Physiology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Physiology. The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author s and the copyright owner s are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice.
No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. Manual massage and foam rolling are commonly used by athletes for warm-up and recovery, as well as by healthy individuals for well-being.
Manual massage is an ancient practice requiring the intervention of an experienced physiotherapist, while foam rolling is a more recent self-administered technique. These two topics have been largely studied in isolation from each other.
In the present review, we first provide a deep quantitative literature analysis to gather the beneficial effects of each technique through an integrative account, as well as their psychometric and neurophysiological evaluations.
We then conceptually consider the motor control strategies induced by each type of massage. During manual massage, the person remains passive, lying on the massage table, and receives unanticipated manual pressure by the physiotherapist, hence resulting in a retroactive mode of action control with an ongoing central integration of proprioceptive feedback.
