Benefits of Massage Therapy Before and After Sports

Massage therapy is one of the most overlooked components of a professional athlete's life. Regardless of all the misconceptions surrounding pre- and post-sport massaging, it holds great benefits for the athlete’s routine and can help with reaching new physical goals.

It’s vital that the body is kept in a relaxed state before sending it into the war on the track or sport’s field. Going directly into the ‘burning’ phase of activity can lead to muscle injury.

Even those not into sports can still benefit from the different massages that are offered by therapeutic establishments. Learn about its different types offered by parlors here: https://www.healthline.com/health/types-of-massage.

Our bodies experience a lot of strain throughout the day. Whether it’s stress or activity related, it’s important that we take care of our muscles to ensure optimum movability. What are the benefits of getting a massage before and after exercise?

Let’s have a deeper look.

What Happens to the Body After an Intense Workout?

If you take part in exercise regularly, you will be aware of the great and not-so-great feelings you experience after a workout. After training you might feel more energized, accomplished, and even happier. Then the body and muscles kick in and you might feel stiffness and soreness.

While exercising, blood is pumped at a higher speed than normal to the muscles that are working out. This increases the oxygen levels as well as the blood flow. With intense muscle training, muscles can tear while your heart rate rises to support the activity.

Once you are done with the exercise, your body has to work even harder to return everything back to normal. This is called the state of recovery. Putting your body under vigorous strain will always have this effect. Depending on your fitness level, your body will react in certain ways.

Because your muscles tore, it will start to reform to reach balance (also known as homeostasis). This process can be quite painful, but it’s nothing to worry about as it’s your body’s way of saying ‘well done!’. Read this to learn more about what happens to your muscles after you’ve worked out.

To speed up this painful recovery process to get your body up and running much faster, sports scientists have done many studies on different techniques. You might have seen that athletes who play high impact sports will jump into an ice-cold bath directly after a game and then into a warm shower.

This quick switch from ice to cold is a way to help their muscles quickly recover. Other, much more relaxing options are massages.

Why Should I Consider a Pre- or Post-Sport Massaging?

There’s a reason why sportsmen and women do warm-up exercises before big games. It’s extremely important to get the blood flowing in order for your body to be warm and ready to perform.

Getting a pre-match massage will help warm up the muscles without tiring the body of doing quick warmup sprints. Sport masseuses use specific techniques, that are usually vigorous and not really relaxing, to help pump oxygenated blood into the muscles. When muscles receive blood with high oxygen content, they are ready to work hard and even reach a higher performance.

Post-sport massages can prevent many different conditions within the muscles. Conditions like splinting, stiffness, and muscle contraction. Splinting is a very painful occurrence when muscles stiffen and contract, creating a horrible muscle spasm. This is usually caused due to the body’s reaction to tissue injury.

Undergoing a professional sports massage will keep your muscles warm and prevent them from spasming. Ultimately, speeding up the healing and recovery process of injured tissue.

Oils and Ointments

Arnica Montana is a mountain plant used in different massage oils and ointments. It holds many benefits and when used during a pre- or post-sports massage can have incredible healing powers. It can soothe tired muscles and relieve pain from bruises, soreness, and stiffness. The medical properties can even help repair inflammation and tears in the tissue.

It’s therefore important that you ask your masseuse for the kind of oil or ointment that they are using. Health spas will typically use oils that are infused with relaxing aromas that deeply penetrate the tissues. But for sportsmen and women, you will need a different kind of oil that targets the muscles.

Are Massages Not Only for Relaxing?

Yes, going for a hot stone or full body massage or even sitting in a chair that can be found on MassageChairHero.com, can be extremely relaxing. That being said, massages hold a much deeper function than only feeling good.

Masseuses are trained to press on many different and important pressure points within the body. This is to stimulate blood flow and help heal torn and stiff muscles.

Other Benefits

There are many other great benefits to booking pre- and post-workout massages. Here is a list of some others:

• When you stick with the same masseuse, you’ll be able to build a great relationship and the masseuse will know what areas of your body to target during a session.
• Instead of taking muscle relaxers, you can naturally let go of spasms and knots through a massage session
• You’ll get much more than just a massage. Professional sports therapists will likely include movement, stretching, resistance exercise, and mobilizations that will speed up recovery and keep your body in great shape
• Keeping your body warm and stretched will improve your flexibility
• It alleviates incredible pain by loosening endorphins into the blood flow
• It encourages and speeds up the process of recovering from an injury and preventing any further injuries in the future
• When your body feels relaxed, you’ll feel more relaxed. Ultimately, improving your sleep
• For pre-sport massages, it can calm your jitters and nerves for the competition ahead

The next time you are planning for a major athletic event, you can consider massage therapy as an option to maintain a healthy and balanced body after and to warm up before.

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