Why is massage important for athletes?
Regular sports massage should be part of your training plan. Sports massage plays a crucial preventative role by keeping muscles flexible, increasing joint mobility and warding off stiffness, which can decrease your reaction time and lead to injuries.
Massage on a weekly, fortnightly or monthly basis will help identify and solve little problems before they develop into bigger issues that can lead to injury. Regular maintenance will allow you to work harder and smarter and improve your overall flexibility, health and performance.
If injuries have already occurred, sports massage can help rehabilitate muscle fibres making your return to training easier and quicker.
Benefits of regular sports massage:Recovery | Injury Prevention | Rehabilitation | Body Awareness | Psychological Benefits
- Stimulates blood circulation bringing oxygen and nutrients to the cells
- Restores and enhances flexibility to tight sore muscles
- Relieves chronic muscular strain, breaks up adhesions caused by micro-scarring through stuck muscle fibres. Loosens fascia and relieves trigger points within muscles; which affects the function of muscle groups when training
- Encourages lymph drainage helping metabolic waste to be carried away
- Reduces pain by stimulating the release of endorphins (the body's natural pain killer)
- Techniques tailored specifically for your massage - deep tissue massage, soft tissue release, joint and postural assessment
- psychologically you will feel centred and feeling good - ready to achieve your personal best!
When during my training should I get a massage?
Sports massage is most beneficial in the recovery period of training or after your hardest workout. Think of the massage as part of the training itself; a cool-down period to ease muscle strain. This timing will allow small muscle traumas to be addressed right away before they become troublesome injuries that will prevent training.
For pre-event massage, allow a couple of days. If you have a race or event coming up, let me know so I can keep the massage and stretching light; which will warm up your muscles without overworking
them.
Post event massage
Post event massage is an important part of your recovery and injury prevention plan. Post event massage 2-3 days after the event will help reduce micro-scarring, ease blood flow so oxygen and nutrients can reach your muscles and reduce inflammation with lymph drainage. Post event is also the best time to increase flexibility with stretching techniques.
