The purpose of this investigation was to examine whether adding a set of vibrating foam rollers (VFR) to a regular running‐based warm‐up before a bout of multidirectional repeated sprints provides protective effects against the sprinting‐induced muscle damage. Twenty‐four elite college handball and rugby players participated in this study. After the familiarization visit, the subjects were random-ly divided into either the vibration rolling (VFR) or the general warm‐up (GW) group. Before (pre-test), post‐24, 48, and 72 h after the muscle‐damaging protocol (15 sets of 30‐m maximal multidirec-tional repeated sprints), plasma creatine kinase (CK), muscle soreness, hip flexion passive range of motion (ROM), isometric strength, and hexagon agility were measured. After the VFR, the CK and DOMS were significantly less than GW (p < 0.05). In addition, when compared with the GW, the hamstring isometric strength, hexagon agility, and 0–10 m and 0–30 m sprint performances showed faster recovery for the VFR (p < 0.05). The VFR protocol had a protective effect on multidirectional repeated sprinting‐induced muscle damage markers than the GW protocol. Therefore, preconditioning warm‐up activities using VFR can be integrated into a traditional sport‐specific warm‐up protocol for elite athletes before competitions/training may take advantage of this strategy to facilitate muscle re-covery.

Keywords：fatigue, injury & prevention, recovery