What is Sports Massage?

Sports massage is a form of massage that helps to relieve pain in certain parts of the body, which is a result of too much physical activity. It is widely used to prevent injuries, to keep athletes in optimal condition and prepare the body for athletic exercises.
It is quite different from traditional spa massage therapies. Sports massage involves deep pressure,specific tehnique stretching, , rhythmic striking and even Swedish massage. However, what technique is used depends on the sort of sport you are engaged with.
You can get a sports massage for maintenance, increase performance,as a pre-event, post-event massage. It is a prescriptive therapy and tailored as per the patient’s needs and requirements. Sports massage is a form of pain management that is designed to treat musculoskeletal and soft-tissue injuries.
Sports massage improves oxygenation and blood circulation. Furthermore, deep tissue massage targets and opens up areas of tightness and muscle knots.
Studies show that individuals recovered faster and felt less fatigued after a sports massage. Besides this, individuals felt enhanced feelings of well-being, got better sleep, had decreased anxiety and an improved mood.
Another study shows that male bodybuilders who got a sports massage directly after a training session recovered more quickly.

Benefits of Sports Massage

Whether you like to hike, run or swim, commute by walking or cycling, have a physical job, are a trained athlete or exerciser, sports massage offers significant benefits and improvements that can help you to do these activities.

Increase Performance, Prevents Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness
Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness is the pain you get if you exert more heavily than usual or after trying a new form of exercise.
You’ll feel the pain 12-24 hours after the exercise. So, don’t worry if you feel pain and soreness in your body the next day. With DOMS, you’re unable to move the muscle in the usual way, which makes you feel very stiff.
Sports massage prevents DOMS by encouraging lymph and blood flow through the body and preventing muscle fatigue. A study shows that soreness is lower at all points of time with a massage. With sports massage, you can recover faster and resume with normal strength.

Reduces Pain
Inflammation in your body causes pain. Sports massage is a wonderful pain management technique. It increases blood flow and reduces the inflammation that causes pain.
Chronic pain leads to a build-up of muscle tension. Sports massage can loosen the tight muscle and lift off muscle tension.
While doing intense physical activities, muscle tension builds up in the body's soft tissues. Even minor lesions and injuries from overexertion can result in significant pain, which can impact your performance.
All athletes should always get a sports massage. It prepares them for their best performance. Sports massage reduces pain and chances of injury that can limit their performance. It reduces fatigue and relieves muscle tension and swelling.

Stress Management Sports massage therapy is very useful to manage stress. During a sports massage, the body releases endorphins. Endorphins are released by two points of the brain - hypothalamus and pituitary gland.
These points are the body's natural pain reliever. When endorphins are released, it provides pain relief, helps to decrease anxiety and improves mood.

Removes Lactic Acid from Muscles When you overexert, you’ll struggle to breathe. That’s because your busy muscles don’t get more oxygen. This struggle produces lactic acid in the body.
When lactic acid is produced, you’ll feel a burning sensation as you’re overexerting. You feel like stopping and your body forces you into recovery mode. A study suggests that sports massage can facilitate the removal of lactic acid.
A massage increases lymphatic fluid flow in the body, which removes waste from cells. This means you can recover quickly after a rough exercise session.

Clearer Mind Sports massage can put you in a meditative state and can benefit you psychologically. The effects it brings to your mind and body are restorative, calming and clearing.
When you get a massage, your body and mind are in a meditative state. This helps you to sort through the clutter and get focussed. An athlete with a focussed and relaxed mind can become highly accomplished in any given sport. It will help an athlete to perform better.

A Boost to Overall Health One of the best benefits of sports massage is it can boost your overall health too. There is an association between post-exercise massage and improvement to the immune system.
A balanced immune system helps you to ward off illness and disease. A few days out of practice because of a cold and cough can give rivals an edge. A Spanish study states that there is a possibility that sports massage can have immunological effects.

Increases Flexibility As an athlete or an exerciser, you have to do your best. However, rigorous training takes a toll on your muscles. Overtraining and strenuous training can cause muscle rigidity.
Sports massage helps in relaxing your tense muscles and increases flexibility. Athletes can get a sports massage before a competition to relax their muscles, and improve flexibility and performance.

Conclusion

The significance of sports massage goes beyond soothing your muscles. It should be highly valued because of its benefits. Every individual and not just athletes should consider getting sports massages a regular part of their routine.
Sports massage combined with the right diet and training schedule can help athletes reach the next level of performance. Make sure to go to a massage therapist who can also show you self-maintenance techniques to improve your endurance.
If you want to ease your tense and sore muscles after a workout and just relax, a sports massage can be valuable for you.

Osteopathic articulation

With Osteopathic articulation the therapist aims to detect, treat, and prevent muscular problems.
The treatments are based upon the principles of wellbeing with an emphasis on people’s bones, joints, muscles, and connective tissue functioning.

Osteopath Articulation use physical manipulation, stretching, to help in facilitating:
- Mobility of joints;
- Muscle tension relief;
- Blood flow in tissues.

Benefits
There are many benefits of Osteopathic Articulation techniques such as:
- Decreasing tension in the body, reducing pain;
- Alleviating stiffness in joint and muscle pain;
- Aiding the health and stability of the joint;
- Boosting blood circulation;
- Improving quality and quantity of motion;
- Assist in the removal of metabolic waste products.

Medical Acupuncture

This is a traditional Chinese practice that involves insertion of very thin needles into the skin at strategic points of your body. It’s commonly used to treat pain; it also helps improve overall wellness, stress, and more.

Medical Acupuncture uses it as a means of medical diagnosis and lays emphasis on the concept of trigger points. Involves the insertion of dry needles into trigger points to create a heeling response in the body by creating a local inflammatory response to help in the healing process of the surrounding tissues.

It plays a crucial role in stimulating the sensory nerves under your skin and in the muscles. This helps in producing pain-alleviating endorphins that provide pain relief and stress management
Acupuncture is often explained as a technique to balance the flow of energy through one’s body. It is said that a life force or chi flows through the pathways in your body. When needles are inserted in the specific points along these meridians at the specific points, this helps in your energy flow to rebalance.
From small medical problems to major injuries, this method helps in providing long-lasting relief from pain and stimulates the nerves, muscles, and connective tissues.

How will you feel after the treatment
After a treatment, some feel relaxed, meanwhile others feel energized and proactive. However, not everybody’s body will respond to medical acupuncture in the same way, usually you will fill light pain in the point of the needle insertion.

Benefits of Medical Acupuncture:
- Sedate trigger points and the pain they cause;
- Creating a heeling response in the body;
- Improve overall wellness;
- Stress management.

Myofascial Release

Myofascial Release is a type of physical therapy that helps in treating myofascial pain syndrome; the therapist is using a soft tissue mobilization focusing on the fascial component of dysfunction.

This syndrome is a chronic pain disorder that comes into existence due to sensitivity or tightness in the myofascial tissues of your body. These tissues provide support to all the muscles of your body.
This origin of this pain occurs in some specific points called the ‘trigger points’. Myofascial Release aims to focus on reducing the pain of a person by easing the tension amidst the tension points.

Benefits of this treatment:

- Enhance Blood Flow. Myofascial release can boost vascular function. This will further help in getting rid of knots and tension in the fascia which may be acting as a restriction for the fluids to flow through the area by boosting muscles and connective tissues.

- Reducing soreness. The treatment helps in better circulation to your muscles and connective tissues which reduce the soreness of muscles. This helps those who are very physically active, like athletes and fitness enthusiasts.

- Lymph Movement. Your immune system fights infections in the body to keep you healthy. The Lymph system plays a crucial role in stimulating pressure that helps in movement of the fluids. Myofascial release boosts the flow of your lymph to your heart.

Myofascial Release helps in eliminating pain and tension and restores motion in your body. With the help of a myofascial release, the body achieves a better physical and energetic balance.

Deep Tissue Therapeutic Massage

Deep Tissue Therapeutic Massage uses techniques gained from traditional Chinese Medicine, Hawaiian Medicine and Reflexology to find any residual tightness or blockage in the body and eliminate it.

This form of massage covers not just the muscles but also the energy systems of the body, as some of the residual tension in the body can be from emotional or stress related reasons.

This technique it’s focusing more on important parts of the body that are often neglected by traditional massage therapists, such as sacrum, the hips and the feet, hands and head.

It’s a more gentle form of massage as we are using more longs movements, medium pressure combine with stretch massage therapy and lymphatic drainage to bust your immune system, prevents Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness and removes Lactic Acid from muscles.
It is usually used for athletes to recover quickly after an event or intense training session.

Lymphatic Drainage it’s an advance therapy in which the therapist use specialized and gentle rhythmic pumping techniques to move the skin in the direction of the lymph flow.

Benefits of Lymphatic Drainage:
-Eliminate metabolic waste and toxins;
-Recover from exercise faster;
-Improve transport of nutrients to cells;
-Clear blockages;
-Has calming effect on the nervous system and help relieve stress and anxiety.