Massage for Sports Therapy
Treating Sports Injuries with Sports Massage Therapy
Massage for sports therapy has been used by athletes for many years. It's so common that a special type of massage called sports massage therapy was developed especially for athletes. This massage combines aspects of Swedish massage and shiatsu to prepare muscles to perform at their peak and to treat injury.
Massage can be used to treat many sports injuries including:
sprains
strains
tendinitis
plantar fasciitis
Massage helps eliminate muscle imbalances that can result from athletic training. Some muscles oppose each other. For example, your bicep bends your elbow while your tricep straightens your elbow. These two muscles are opposing muscles. If one of these muscles becomes too tight it will stretch out the opposing muscles causing pain. This is a muscle imbalance.
If someone does one activity over and over again in a training environment they are strengthening the muscles that are used to perform that task. When you're doing this if you don't exercise the opposing muscles just as much you'll get imbalances. These imbalances lead to injury and pain. Massage helps lengthen tight, shortened muscles.
A massage therapist can passively stretch muscles to increase their ranges of motion. They can also assist you with active stretches. Methods like Muscle Energy Technique are especially good for stretching short tight muscles. Massaging the weaker muscles will increase the blood flow into the muscles decreasing the pain that you may experience in those muscles.
When exercised muscles create a waste product called lactic acid. When you're exercising a lot your muscles produce more lactic acid than you are able to pump out of your system causing it to build up. Build-up of lactic acid causes muscle soreness. Massage helps muscles drain lactic acid more quickly. Simply doing even strokes towards the drainage points will help push the lactic acid out of your system.
Getting massaged before participating in an athletic event is great for preventing sports injuries. Massage helps increase circulation. Muscles that are receiving plenty of oxygen perform better and are less likely to get injured. Massage for sports therapy also helps increase muscle flexibility and muscle stability.
Getting a massage or even massaging yourself before participating in sports will help loosen and warm up the muscles to prevent injuries from occurring. If you massage yourself focus on the major muscle groups used the most in the activity you're getting ready to do.
Once the sporting event is over massage the muscles used to lessen soreness later on. These simple steps are actually quite affective in preventing sports injuries.
If you participate in athletics, massage for sports therapy can help you prevent injury. If you have a sports injury massage can help it heal more quickly.
