January 28, 2005
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January 28, 2005, Issue #022
Improve Your Workout with Massage Therapy
Did you know that massage therapy can help your workout? Massage can do wonders for the fitness enthusiast--helping to improve performance, decrease recovery time, improve circulation, increase flexibility, and reduce muscle strain.What Happens When You Exercise?
Regular exercise increases vigor, promotes a general sense of well-being, helps relieve the effects of stress, increases muscle strength and endurance, makes your heart and breathing more efficient, improves flexibility, and more!
These positive changes occur as the body gradually adapts to the greater demands put on it by regular exercise. But as you push your physical limits, you may experience stiffness and soreness. Delayed muscle soreness (24-48 hours after exercise) may be caused by minor muscle or connective tissue damage, local muscle spasms that reduce blood flow, or a build up of waste products from energy production.
Heavily exercised muscles that are not stretched regularly can become chronically tight and lose flexibility. Lack of flexibility leads to muscle soreness, and predisposes you to injuries, especially muscle pulls and tears. Tight muscles also impede blood flow, which causes pain.
How Massage Helps
Massage therapy helps your body recover from the stresses of strenuous exercise.
- Massage relaxes muscles, improves joint mobility and range of motion, and promotes flexibility. More relaxed muscles move more easily, which gives you increased power, performance, and efficiency.
- Massage relieves muscle aches and stiffness and decreases post-workout muscle soreness. Waste products such as lactic and carbonic acid build up in muscles after exercise. Massage increases circulation to muscles, which helps to eliminate toxic debris and shorten recovery time between workouts.
- Massage breaks up scar tissue and adhesions (stuck-together soft tissue) by stretching connective tissue and improving circulation. (Scar tissue and adhesions reduce movement potential and increase the possibility of injury.)
- Massage prevents injuries that might be caused by stressing unbalanced muscle groups or by favoring or forcing a painful, restricted area. You are also less likely to injure strong, mobile tissue.
- Massage keeps trouble spots from becoming a problem. You may have you own unique trouble spots, perhaps from past injuries or repetitive activities such as hours at a computer. Massage can give special attention to these areas, monitor them for developing problems, and help keep them in good condition.
The Bottom Line - Massage and Exercise
Massage improves blood and lymph circulation and relaxes muscles. These in turn lead to removal of waste products and better cell nutrition, greater elasticity of tissues, and faster healing of injuries. It all adds up to relief from soreness and stiffness, better flexibility, and less potential for future injury.
Massage decreases pain and increases flexibility. If you have no pain and the ability to stretch further, you have the ability to increase strength, power, and endurance by allowing your muscles to work proficiently and properly.
Massage can be an important addition to your exercise program, helping you achieve your performance goals with minimum injury and pain. After training, a massage will help you recover faster, flushing out the built up toxins in the muscles.
Ideally, getting a massage once a week is optimal, supporting your fitness or sports program, improving flexibility and range of motion, relieving tired and sore muscles, and speeding recovery from strenuous physical exertion.
Call your massage therapist today for an appointment!
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