Before or after — and why the answer is boring
Published
This gets asked more than anything else, and the honest answer is that the timing question is much smaller than people want it to be.
Before
Rolling before training tends to be brief and broad. Thirty to sixty seconds a area, moving, not parking on any one spot. The aim is to feel ready to move through range, not to do deep work.
Keep it short. A long rolling session before lifting leaves you feeling loose in a way that isn’t especially useful under load.
After
Afterwards you can be slower and more specific. Longer holds, less area, more attention to whatever actually feels congested. This is where most people get more out of it, mostly because they’re not in a hurry to start training.
What we’re not claiming
We’re not going to tell you rolling prevents soreness, speeds recovery, or does anything to inflammation. Those claims get made constantly and we’re not in a position to make them.
What we can say is narrower: people generally report moving more comfortably after rolling, and that effect is short-lived. Use it accordingly.
The actual answer
Do it whenever you’ll actually do it. Consistency beats timing by a distance that makes the timing debate close to irrelevant.