Sports Massage & the promise of Spring

As the thermometers creep upwards and I flip my calendar into March, my mind takes me to the promise of spring. With warmer temperatures, comes visions of cyclists whirring their way around a criterium loop and runners sweating as they complete their races. The common thread among these images is that of exertion, contraction and a need for recovery.

Athletes exert their bodies, stress their muscles and cardiovascular systems and can find themselves to be sore as a result. Controversy exists as to the cause of delayed onset muscle soreness, but there is little controversy about the results of massage post-workout. Massage applied after a competition can decrease your recovery period (how long soreness lasts), aid in transportation of metabolic wastes (lactic acid, etc.) away from muscles and replenish muscles with oxygenated blood full of nutrients. This results in faster healing at micro-trauma sites within muscles, increased capacity for lengthening of muscles and increase in para-sympathetic nervous activity (deeper breathing, relaxation of psoas muscles, increase in bowel activity). All in all, this means that an athlete will be able to return to their activity faster after a hard workout with massage than without.

Many people construe sports massage with "deep massage"; ie. more pressure applied into muscles. However, my experience has been that "sports massage" is a paradigm from which I choose my techniques. For instance, a triathlete who has completed a 15-16 hour race over an Ironman distance (which have a 17 hour cutoff time) will probably not appreciate "deep" work into their muscles due to the volume and intensity of the trauma they have already been through that day. However, an athlete who completes the same distance in 9-11 hours may tolerate this work very easily. The application of few minutes (up to 15 minutes) of effleurage could have a profound effect upon the first competitor by encouraging fluids, such as blood and lymph, to move to areas of the body that can process them.

I often equate sports massage with "focused bodywork to maintain or increase athletic performance." Whether working with an athlete to recover from an event or to refresh their body for a return to their sports, this definition holds much greater value than just "deep massage." By shifting the emphasis to the goal of performance, I am returning to an empirical standard, rather than a limiting set of techniques.

In conclusion, I see ice melting off of my roof and posts for rides on email, all of which serve to set my mind back to sports and the services that I enjoy providing in that arena. By clarifying the definitions of sports massage, I hope that the reader has gained a better handle on the services available from the therapists in their area.