Acute Effects of Vibration Foam Rolling with Light and Moderate Pressure on Blood Pressure and Senior Fitness Test in Older Women

Abstract

Vibration foam rolling (VR) can improve flexibility and sports performance. However, blood pressure (BP), heart rate (HR) and senior fitness test (SFT) responses induced by an acute VR session in older women are currently unknown. Fifteen healthy women (72.90 ± 4.32 years) completed three separated randomly sequenced experimental visits. During each visit, they started with a warm-up protocol (general warm up (GW): walking + static stretching (SS), SS + VR with light pressure (VRL), or SS + VR with moderate pressure (VRM)), and completed BP, HR, SFT measurements. The systolic BP increased significantly after all three warm up protocols (p < 0.05). Both VRL and VRM protocols induced statistically significant improvements (effect size range: 0.3–1.04, p < 0.05) in the senior fitness test (back scratch, 30 s chair stand, 30 s arm curl, and 8 foot up and go), as compared to the GW. In addition, the VRM showed greater improvement for the 2 min step test when comparing with the VRL. Therefore, including VR in a warm-up protocol can result in superior SFT performance enhancement than the GW does in healthy older women.

Comparison of acute and prolonged effects of short-term foam rolling and vibration foam rolling on the properties of knee extensors

“…They showed that VFR was more effective than FR in improving pain and hip extension ROM. In addition, VFR for older women has been reported to be effective in improving senior fitness performance when incorporated as a warm-up [ 9 ] as well as an increase in shoulder flexibility when combined with static stretching [ 10 ]. On the other hand, FR and VFR intervention for the ankle plantar flexors was reported to be effective in increasing ROM on the nonintervention side to the same extent [ 7 ].…”