What is Sports Massage?
A form of massage which utilises specific techniques and stretches to help obtain maximum performance and physical conditioning with less chance of injury or pain. It increases power, endurance, and flexibility both before and after an event or workout (Pro-active, 2019).
Getting a Sports Massage comes with a tonne of benefits, including physical, physiological and psychological. Sports massage is used a lot of the time in elite sport but not limited to, all kinds of people are now benefitting from a Sports Massage. Below covers a few of the reasons why Sports Massage may benefit you:
Recovery - following a tough training session and/or competition you may feel a little tight and sore in some places. Massage can help loosen those areas and decrease recovery time.
Relief from Tension headaches – in most cases, tension headaches are related to muscle tightness around the cervical region of the spine. Typically caused from bad posture and/or stress. They are sometimes interlinked, so a massage may deal with the solution to a problem.
Injury Prevention – seeing a Sport Massage therapist can help assist in the prevention of an injury. On the initial assessment, the therapist will perform some assessments on you to identify restricted movement (tightness) or weakness which could potentially turn into an injury.
Reducing Anxiety – anxiety is a sympathetic response to stress. Massage has been shown to increase relaxation and over time reduce levels of anxiety.
When to get a Sports Massage?
Like all things in the world, getting a specific thing all depends on the circumstances. However, with my clients on a consistent programme workings towards a specific event, I like to implements a Sports Massage once a week a foundation recovery strategy to ensure they’ll as fresh as they can be for the next session. As a general guideline for a competitor in a sport, it is recommended that in order to receive optimal benefits from a Sports Massage you need to have it one day after a tough session or competition day.
Providing Context
I remember a lunchtime conversation with one of my lecturers Dr Bourne about what the best type of athlete was. I said to him, a strong, fast and agile one. He said, “no, an available athlete”. This has stuck with me since then and I have taken on as part of the foundations I build a training programme on. Now, the world of sports science puts huge emphasise on the optimising the recovery of the athletes. This is great for everybody because it’s now being implemented in everyday life. This is particularly useful for us living in the hustle and bustle of London. London moves at a super fast pace and it is becoming more and more common for people to work harder and harder. It’s all great to see the financial gain from all of the of the hard work that you are doing, but at what cost. Take care of yourself by setting some staples in your life surrounding yourself with things that you like and know give you a good feeling, including something like a Sports Massage and you will be able to continue moving at the pace that you do. Lets face it, we’ve all had a few too many on a Sunday night and trying to function at a high level on a Monday (sometimes even Tuesday) morning is not easy.
Thanks for taking the time to read this, more content will be on its way. Please feel free to add some requests in the comments section so that I can cover some topics that you might be interested. I might be able to answer some of those burning questions that you’ve had in your head for a while. For example, whilst in the gym this morning someone asked me “do you take amino acids?'“. The answer was “no”. If you’re consuming enough protein in the day, you don’t need to take them. Besides, the evidence supporting the use of amino acids is weak. Thanks.
Peace and love and all that stuff.
Luke :)
DISCLAIMER: The information I provide on my page is only advisory. I take no responsibility for any of the actions that you take. If you have any medical conditions, please see your GP before trying anything.