Sports Massage
Sports Massage is given to active people, usually those involved in sports on a
regular basis, as a part of their conditioning program. This is called Maintenance
Sports Massage. These are usually 60 minute massages that rebalance muscle tension,
move toxins out of the muscles and help treat chronic pains and injuries.
Often, sports massage is performed on athletes before, during and after their athletic
event. This is called Event Sports Massage, these sessions are usually short 15-20
minutes and either help warm up or cool down an athlete. For event massages, it
makes more sense to hire a massage therapist to work on multiple athletes (a team
or group of marathon runners) than a single person.
Since almost everything an athlete does is to condition their body (this may be
in the form of workouts, weightlifting, drills, and more) it only makes sense that
an important part of keeping the body in good condition would be to receive a relaxing
and tension-relieving massage. Benefits include:
- Reduction in swelling
- Increased flexibility/Decreased tension
- Enhanced performance
- Injury prevention and recovery
- Pain reduction
-Increased blood flow to muscles
-Increased removal of waste from muscles (less soreness and fatigue)
Sports massage therapy is a combination of different types of massage therapies
and techniques. The type of techniques that will be used in an athlete's sports
massage will depend on the needs of that athlete at that time. Many times, sports
massage therapy will include techniques from both Shiatsu and Swedish massage, plus
stretching and body mobilization.
Each type of sport (and each position in a sport) will demand something different
from the players' bodies than other sports. This means that the kind of sports massage
therapy that a player will receive is greatly affected by the type of sport (and
the position) that they play.