If you’re an athlete, or even a mildly active person, adding sports massage to your regular treatment schedule can enhance your performance and reduce the risk of injury.
Unlike regular massage, which relies on petrissage (sliding strokes) to relax muscles, sports massage uses other techniques to prepare and support athletes before and after an event.
Benefits
Whether you’re an elite athlete pushing the limits of your performance, or a recreational exerciser wanting to optimise recovery and enhance wellness, sports massage can cater to your therapeutic needs. It accelerates injury recovery, boosts athletic performance and increases flexibility.
Physiologically, sports massage enhances oxygen and nutrient delivery to muscles, promoting normal muscle function and movement. It alleviates muscular fatigue by reducing muscle spasm, increasing blood flow and flushing out metabolic waste products. This improves endurance, allowing you to train harder for longer.
Using techniques like effleurage (smooth, gliding strokes), petrissage (kneading and squeezing) and deep friction, it breaks down adhesions or knots within the muscle tissues, loosening and releasing tension. It also increases the elasticity of muscle and tendons, improving mobility and range of motion. Flexibility is key to avoiding injuries, maintaining healthy tissue and optimising your performance. Athletes also experience enhanced focus and awareness as a result of regular sports massage. This is especially beneficial during competition, boosting their mental performance and preparing them for peak performances.
Techniques
A sports massage therapist will use a range of manipulation techniques including compression, friction and stretching. This helps improve the flexibility of muscle fibres, fascia tissue and ligaments. This reduces the risk of injury and improves performance.
A regular session will help prevent injuries by releasing endorphins and breaking down muscle adhesions which can result from training or repetitive movements. It can also reduce the occurrence of delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS) after exercise and improve the quality of recovery.
Enhanced flexibility allows muscles to work more efficiently, helping them perform at their best. This has a direct impact on athletic performance, making it easier to reach that top shelf or tie your shoelaces!
Another physiological effect of a sports massage is the removal of metabolic wastes such as lactic acid. This enhances the delivery of nutrients to the muscle tissues and promotes a quicker recovery time after training or competition. It also aids in removing the build-up of toxins that can hinder performance and lead to inflammation.
Preparation
The massage techniques in sports massage such as effleurage and petrissage work to warm the muscles, improve flexibility and help with range of motion. During the session, it’s important to communicate with your massage therapist so they can adapt the treatment to fit your specific needs.
Another physiological effect of sports massage is a reduction in pain. The touch of massage interrupts pain signals that travel up the spinal cord and into the brain, and stimulates morphine-like substances the body can self manufacture that override pain sensations.
Whether you’re a competitive athlete seeking a new personal best, or just a recreational runner, everyone can benefit from regular sport massage sessions. However, if you have a health condition or injury talk to your doctor before booking an appointment. Your therapist may recommend other treatments or suggest home care strategies to get the most out of your massage.
Recovery
A key piece of sports massage aftercare advice is to drink plenty of fluids. This is because kneading the muscles releases fluid from soft tissue into the circulatory system, heading towards the kidneys. Drinking water will help to replenish this lost fluid and promote elasticity in the muscles.
A further physiological effect of sports massage is the break down of adhesions within the muscle tissues. Adhesions occur as a result of the inflammatory process and cause the muscles to become sticky and bind together. The deep friction techniques used in sports massage break down these adhesions and facilitate healing by allowing the muscles to move freely again.
Maintenance sports massages are regularly scheduled sessions designed to keep an athlete in peak performance and to prevent injuries. These are typically aimed at reducing the build up of metabolites and stretching routines with sports massage aiding recovery from intense training sessions and competitions.
