At major sporting events like the Olympic Games massage is usually one of the most sought after treatments by athletes from many sports.A lot of professional soccer Rugby and GAA clubs now have recovery days built into their programmes following matches when the massage therapist works with the players.
On the Tour De france there are usually four therapists working with each team. These share the work of massage, preparation of race food and organisation of hotel rooms etc between them for the three week race.
I think that tells us how top sportspeople value the importance of massage to recovery.
What are the benefits of massage?
Research has shown that massage will reduce blood lactate following exercise ( a cool down period of exercise also reduces lactates) when compared to passive recovery, ie just resting.
There is also evidence that massage reduces the delayed onset of muscle soreness. This is significant, especially in regard to athletes who compete in multi stage events like Football tournaments, bicycle stage races, athletic heats etc, or who do large amounts of training.
Massage may also help an athletes immune system as massage reduces stress levels and the stress hormones, which can have a compromising effect on the immune system if they are elevated. It is also enhances sleep and relaxation which is beneficial to recovery.
Massage as a warm up?
Before events or training sessions a proper warm up will be much more effective than massage to prepare the body for exercise and a massage should not take the place of a warmup.
How long should the Massage take?
From thirty to forty five minutes is usual. And the majority of the massage should be on the main working muscles that the athlete uses for their specific sport.
Cost of massage
For the amateur sports person massage can be quite expensive and they may not be able to avail of it so often. If finances are a limiting factor there are lots of other recovery methods that are inexpensive or have no cost (see previous articles and other articles to follow) so you should not feel that you are at a huge disadvantage if you can not afford / get regular massage.
Massage should be from a qualified Massage Therapist.You may also learn self massage from a therapist or through a book on massage.
