It sounds okay, but not revolutionary, according to the evidence presented here.
In summary, these individual studies suggest that foam rolling could reduce arterial stiffness, improve arterial function and improve vascular endothelial function and increase joint range-of-motion (ROM) while not impeding the production of muscular force or rate of force development and having no detrimental effects on athletic performance pre-workout.
Though when this guy sums it all up, it looks much less impressive.
a) Short bouts of foam rolling do not improve performance measures such as vertical jump, sprint speed, agility. (not surprising)
b) Foam rolling is less fatiguing than planking. (hahah I know. Research is funny sometimes)
c) An 8 week foam rolling program was ineffective at increasing hamstring flexibility.
d) 2 one minute bouts of foam rolling was shown to increase knee range of motion, and did not decrease force production.
So, is foam rolling harmful to performance? No. Will it potentially improve specific physical traits? Maybe. Is it worth spending the majority of your movement prep on? Absolutely not. Find your tender areas and torture yourself for 5 minutes. Then get off the damn thing and do something that is going to prepare your body for the loaded movement patterns that you plan to destroy.
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