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Benefits
What are the benefits of Sports Massage?
· Reduces muscular tension throughout the body.
· Increases injury recovery time when used as part of an injury rehabilitation programme.
· Reduces pain by releasing endorphins to combat tension and waste products in muscles.
· Increases the likelihood of injury prevention if used regularly.
· Aids in the restoration of the musculo–skeletal system balance.
· Provides an improvement in postural alignment.
· Reduces the symptoms of overtraining, i.e. muscle, tendon and joint soreness.
· Improves flexibility, range of movement and freedom of movement.
· Increase or decrease muscle tone and muscle length.
· Stimulates blood circulation to muscles and other structured throughout the body.
· Improves circulation, blood flow and lymphatic drainage within the body.
· Assists in the removal of metabolic waste via the lymphatic system
· Breaks down scar tissue, adhesions and fibrous tissue within muscles and structures.
· Relieves and loosens tired and aching muscles.
· Promotes and aids relaxation.
· Enhances one’s own body self awareness.
· Enhances an athletes’ performance when used regularly.
· Reduces recovery time between training sessions.
· Can help to extend an athletes’ overall sporting career.
The physical effects of massage are:
Pumping - The stroking movements in massage suck fluid through blood vessels and lymph vessels. By increasing the pressure in front of the stroke, a vacuum is created behind. This is especially important in tight or damaged muscle tissue as a tight muscle will squeeze blood out like a sponge, depriving the tissues of vital nutrients and energy to repair.
Increased tissue permeability - Deep massage causes the pores in tissue membranes to open, enabling fluids and nutrients to pass through. This helps remove waste products such as lactic acid and encourage the muscles to take up oxygen and nutrients which help them recover quicker.
Stretching - Massage can stretch tissues that could not be stretched in the usual methods. Bundles of muscle fibres are stretched lengthwise as well as sideways. Massage can also stretch the sheath or fascia that surrounds the muscle, so releasing any tension or pressure build up.
Break down scar tissue - Scar tissue is the result of previous injuries or trauma and can affect muscle, tendons and ligaments. This can lead to inflexible tissues that are prone to injury and pain.
Improve tissue elasticity - Hard training can make tissues hard and inelastic. This is one reason why hard training may not result in improvements. Massage helps reverse this by stretching the tissues.
Opens micro-circulation - Massage does increase blood flow to tissues, but so does exercise. What massage also does is open or dilate the blood vessels and by stretching them this enables nutrients to pass through more easily.
The physiological effects of sports massage are:
Pain reduction - Tension and waste products in muscles can often cause pain. Massage helps reduce this in many ways including releasing the bodys’ endorphins.
Relaxation - Muscles relax through heat generated, circulation and stretching. Mechanoreceptors which sense touch, pressure, tissue length and warmth are stimulated causing a reflex relaxation.
The psychological effects of massage are:
Anxiety reduction - through the effects mentioned above relaxation is induced and so reduces anxiety levels.
Invigorating - if massage is done with brisk movements such as what would be done before an event then this can produces an invigorating feeling.