health brief

Whether you are a professional athlete or participating in an amateur sports league with your friends, exercise can provide significant benefits. However, exercise, when not managed correctly, can also lead to injury. To ensure that you are receiving all of the benefits of exercise and not setting your body up for failure over time, massage can be your body’s ally.

Benefits of Massage on Exercise
Incorporating professional massage into your routine can help enhance and sustain your athletic performance, including:
• Reducing muscle tension
• Promoting relaxation
• Increasing range of motion
• Improving soft tissue function
• Supporting recovery or heart rate variability after high-intensity exercise
• Decreasing muscle stiffness and fatigue
• Reduce swelling
• Decreasing delayed muscle soreness
• Enhancing athletic performance
• Reducing breathing pattern disorders
• Preventing injuries

Massage to Manage Inflammation
A study conducted by the Buck Institute for Research on Aging and McMaster University in Ontario found evidence of the benefits of massage for individuals with musculoskeletal injuries and even showed potential benefits for those with inflammatory diseases.

This study included muscle biopsies of 11 young male subjects after a massage that took place 2.5 hours after intense exercise. The study found that at the cellular level, massage can provide similar benefits to anti-inflammatory medications.

Massage to Speed Recovery
Researchers at Ohio State University were curious whether the long-held theory about massage helping to improve recovery after a sports injury was based in reality. This study included the provision of massage therapy and compression of muscles after intense exercise reduced the swelling and muscle damage in a study using animals. While these findings aren’t directly applicable to humans they are seen as a strong start toward confirmation of massage’s benefits after intense exercise.

Contributed by Irene’s Myomassology Institute, a nationally accredited massage therapy school located in Southfield, Michigan. Scholarships and Financial Aid are available for qualified students to help them pay school tuition. Students graduate with a state license prepared for a successful career as a massage therapist. For more information or details on resources referenced in this HealthBrief, call 248-350-1400 or visit Irenes.edu.