Massage, how can it help me?

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What is massage?


Definition:
“The rubbing and kneading of muscles and joints of the body with the hands, especially to relieve tension or pain.”

What types of massage are there?

Remedial  massage:

This is massage to aid the recovery of particular injuries or specific problems.


General preventative massage:

This is a deep massage to give relaxation to any muscles that are found to be holding excessive tension. This is a very good type of massage to help to prevent injury  by relaxing tense muscles that are more liable to injure.


Effleurage:

A deep massage aimed to help to clear fluid from the tissues by assisting it up the lymph vessels to the lymph nodes.


Sports massage:

“Sports Massage (also referred to as soft tissue massage) is the management, manipulation and rehabilitation of soft tissues of the body including muscles, ligaments and tendons.” (Sports Massage Association).
Sports massage is really just massage techniques that are applied to a sport setting or for a sporting reason.


Pre-event warm up massage:

This is a short, shallow & vigorous massage to get the blood flowing within the muscles. This is used before the event starts to prepare the body for sport and activity. 


Recuperative massage:

This is aimed at soothing tired & aching muscles after work, sports events or hard training. This will speed up recovery and help you to get back to normal faster.


What are the benefits of massage?


The general consensus is that massage does the following:

Relieves pain.
Soft tissue relaxation.
Relief of stress.
Improves circulation and lymphatic flow.
Assists in the removal of metabolic waste.
Sedates or stimulates nerve endings.
Increases or decreases muscle length.
Increases or decreases muscle tone.
Assists scar tissue healing.
Psychological effects: Assists in the mental preparation for sport.

If you need to find out more about muscle knots click here:

What are Muscle knots?


What does the research say about massage?

Contrary to popular belief sports massage is not just for sportspeople, see below:



Recovery:

Massage does help recovery although it isn’t as good as cold-water immersion as this paper highlights with the recovery from basketball matches, especially in women (Delextrat et al 2013).


Headaches & Migraines:

It helps cervicogenic headaches, which are headaches that are caused by the neck. This research paper shows that in combination with upper cervical spine mobilisation it was effective (Youssef & Shanb 2013).
It can help migraines: Massage, physio, relaxation & manipulative therapy might be equally effective as propranolol & topiramate (Chaibi et al 2011).
Good for tension headaches: Myofascial (muscle and connective tissue) trigger point massage has a beneficial effect on pain in female patients with chronic tension headache. (Berggreen et al 2012).


Neck pain:

Massage for mechanical neck pain was found to provide immediate effectiveness both in pain & tenderness (Patel et al 2012).


Low back pain:

There is an emerging body of evidence supporting massage therapy for non-specific low back pain in the short term (Kumar et al 2013).
Beneficial for patients with subacute & chronic low-back pain, especially combined with exercises & education (Furlan et al 2010).
Massage with lumbar traction is better in chronic non-specific low back pain than with lumbar traction alone (Zheng et al 2012).


Muscle length:

Classic & deep massage had an immediate, significant effect on hamstring length in female field hockey players (Hopper et al 2004).


Pain:

Massage produced hyoalgesic (pain relieving) effects on experimental pain in healthy volunteers (Kessler et al 2006).


So as you can see it is very effective especially in combination with other treatments and it doesn't have to be painful either!


If you need any further information or would like to book an appointment then call Hawkes Physiotherapy on 01782 771861 or 07866195914


Comments

  1. Atiqur_Rahman26 January 2015 at 09:45

    It is one of the resourceful article indeed.Your every types of massage would help people who are suffering from back pain ,stress and muscle injuries.Thanks
    Chiropractor north ryde

    ReplyDelete

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