Massage, how can it help me?
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.
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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!
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
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