Sports Massage:

Many sports and fitness enthusiasts are now including regular therapeutic massage as part of their conditioning programs. There is a growing awareness that a complete workout routine includes not only the exercise itself, but also caring for the wear-and-tear and minor injuries that naturally occur with strenuous movement. 

Who can benefit from regular massage? Anyone who routinely stretches their limits through running, cycling, hiking, swimming, dancing, strength training, playing tennis or racquetball. In fact, anyone who uses their bodies strenuously in their work, gardeners, young mothers with small children, will find relief and recovery with therapeutic massage. 

Massage is beneficial when starting a conditioning program, because it helps you get into good shape faster, and with less stiffness and soreness. It helps you recover faster from heavy workouts, and relieves conditions that may cause injury.

Heavily exercised muscles may lose their capacity to relax, causing chronically tight (hypertonic) muscles, and loss of flexibility. Lack of flexibility is often linked to muscle soreness, and predisposes you to injuries, especially muscle pulls and tears. Blood flow through tight muscles is poor (ischemia) which also causes pain.

The physiological effects of massage include improved blood and lymph circulation, muscle relaxation and general relaxation. These in turn lead to removal of waste products and better cell nutrition, normalization and greater elasticity of tissues, deactivation of trigger points, and faster healing of injuries. It all adds up to relief from soreness and stiffness, better flexibility and less potential for future injury.

Conditioning for the competitor involves pre-event, intra-event and post event massage:

•  Pre-event, given within four hours preceding an event, improves performance and helps decrease injuries. It is generally 10-15 minutes sessions and focuses on warming-up the major muscles to be used and getting the athlete in a good mental state for competition. Certain massage techniques can help calm a nervous athlete, and others can be stimulation.
• Intra-event is given between events or in time outs to help athletes recover from the preceding activity and prepare for the activity coming up. Also 10-15 minutes, it focuses on the major muscles stressed in the activity. 
• Post-event is given after a competition and is concerned with recovery, not only tissue repair and normalization, but also general relaxation and mental calming. A recovery session might be 15 minutes to an hour in length.