Many
athletes spend countless hours working there muscles, improving their strength and increasing their cardio-vascular abilities. Ask any good coach though and they will tell you that recovery, when training in any sport, is a vital piece of success. Recovery often requires resting the body and one way to do this is through massage therapy. People often think of massage as relaxation and stress relief, but there are countless ways it can benefit your fitness routine. Licensed massage therapist Sharon Koski offers the following top ten ways massage can be an excellent tool in helping your athletic performance.
Stress Relief
Stress relief is essential to achieving a healthier lifestyle. Even a single massage session can significantly lower heart rate, cortisol and insulin levels, all of which help reduce daily stress.
Flushes Bodily Toxins
Massage therapy plays an important role in clearing toxins from your body. Regular massages can flush out lactic acid build-up in muscles, promote sinus drainage, loosen mucus in the lungs and break up scar tissue. Flushing out toxins and clearing the normal byproducts of muscle metabolism can result in reduced fatigue, improved stamina and accelerated healing of muscles or injuries.
Encourages Relaxation
Relax. Reset. Repeat. Massage has been shown to help the body enter a relaxing rest-and-recovery mode, an effect that lingers long after the massage is over.
Improves Posture
Unlike other bad habits, poor posture can be relaxing to correct. Massage helps reinforce healthy and natural movements, which can get your posture back on track. Good posture helps during athletic performance, regardless of the sport in which you are competing.
Improves Circulation
The pressure created by massage therapy moves blood through congested areas. This causes new blood to flow in, resulting in improved body function.
Lowers Blood Pressure
High blood pressure has more misconceptions than nearly any other medical condition. But one effective way to stave off high blood pressure naturally is massage therapy. A 2008 study in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine revealed that undergoing deep-tissue massage therapy while listening to soothing music may lead to a decrease in both blood pressure and heart rate.
Improves Flexibility & Range of Motion
As we age, joints tend to tighten, making range of motion more restricted. Massage helps keep joints more fluid, making you more flexible and less prone to injury.
Boosts Immunity
Regular workouts and sports competitions can deplete the body of amino acids and other essential nutrients. Massage therapy minimizes the effects of this depletion. It can also help to boost the immune system, which in turn, aids the body in fighting off illness. According to Tiffany Field, Ph.D., Director of the Touch Research Institute at the University of Miami School of Medicine, “Massage helps ward off bugs by boosting your natural killer cells, the immune system's first line of defense against invading illness. We know that cortisol destroys natural killer cells; therefore, since massage decreases cortisol, your immune cells get a boost." Massage therapy keeps athletes energized and healthy for future workouts.
Speeds Healing & Recovery
When an athlete experiences an injury, there can be lasting effects even when an injury appears to be healing. Scar tissue often forms within healthy muscle tissue, and this can prevent an athlete from returning to their previous level of performance. Regular exercise can leave behind small amounts of scar tissue, making a muscle susceptible to injury and pain. Sports massage works to make scar tissue more pliable for faster healing. However, the Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research warns that massage should not be painful. If any part of a massage feels painful or uncomfortable, tell the massage therapist immediately, as applying too much pressure can sometimes lead to serious problems.
Alleviates Muscle Tenderness
Massage therapy offers benefits to athletes both before and after practice workouts and sports events. Similar to the gentle stroking and kneading techniques of Swedish massage, the massaging actions of sports massage works to stretch and loosen tight muscles. Massage alleviates muscle tenderness and helps muscles heal more quickly from workouts. Muscles tend to tighten and begin to lose flexibility when they are overworked. Consequently, tight muscles can be painful and are more prone to pulls and tears.
Koski encourages people to consider incorporating regular massage with a licensed therapist into their fitness routines. It can have tremendous benefits and help many athletes and fitness-minded people achieve their goals.
Sharon Koski’s practice is located in Scottsdale, Arizona. Visit her website at www.SharonKoski.com for additional information.
Sharon G. Koski Richard, LMT, NCBTMB
Arizona Licensed & Nationally Certified
American Massage Therapy Association, Fully Insured
www.sharonkoski.com
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