So how does massage prepare you for sport?
We all know that professional sports people take massages as a part of their training programme, but is it a mere indulgence?
Playing sport demands that you have good blood flow to all the muscles you are going to use, prior to playing. This enables you to provide the working muscles with immediate nutrients to work efficiently and help drain away the waste products which accumulate during sport.
Furthermore, the blood carries warmth to the muscles which helps to make them more elastic, which is vital for performance.
For the sportsperson, not only does massage help to achieve this both pre and post exercise, it improves the conditioning of the muscles. This assists flexibility and eliminates ‘blocks’ in your system, thus allowing you to both perform better and lessen the likelihood of injury.
For example, if you have suffered from a hamstring tear, you may have residual knots in your muscle, which limit your performance potential and increase your chances of re-strain. By loosening these knots, you will address your weak spots and have more confidence to just go for it!
Deep Tissue Massage
Working at computers, driving long distances, stress… all these activities cause stiffness in the muscles which hold us in position for hour after hour.
Build up of tensions in the muscles which support you will change the way that you move in both daily activities and whilst you play. Stiff muscles will also pull on the joints, compromising their movement and leading to joint strains.
Following a day of sedentary work, these muscle and joint tensions will be greater and it is essential to loosen these to gain the greatest results. Joint strains are best treated with physiotherapy however massage will help to release the joints and dramatically improve your flexibility and control.
Please note that deep massage can change your control as when you are looser, as you will not be compensating for the problematic areas because your body will function the way it is designed to do so. You should therefore not have deep treatments just prior to sporting competitions for this reason and always try out your new body prior to competing.
Specific effects of Massage on the Sportsperson
- Warm up/ cool down for muscles prior to and following exercise
- Massage can stretch your muscle fibres in every direction, impossible to do with pure stretching alone and enabling you to train harder for longer.
- Helps resolve post exercise discomfort
- Relief of chronic injury or strain by release of joint strains
- Enhanced drainage of waste products to speed recovery from exercise
Exercising with muscles in spasm or tension
will significantly reduce your control,
precision and accuracy, hence sporting
performance will be severely
compromised.
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