The use of massage therapy has more than doubled since 1997. Many of those people sought out the services of a massage therapist to deal with muscle soreness. To understand why massage is effective for sore muscles, you will need some information about how your muscles get sore and what massage can do about it.
What Causes Sore Muscles?
The most common cause of muscle soreness is overuse. Delayed onset muscle soreness, or DOMS for short, is a frequent complaint after heavy or vigorous exercise. It was previously thought to be the result of lactic acid and other metabolic waste products building up in the muscles from strenuous activity, but more recently it is considered an effect of microtearing in the muscles.
How Does Massage Help?
One of the effects of massage therapy is an increase in circulation throughout the body. The nutrients required for repair are moved through your body by means of your circulatory system. Increased circulation means increased supply of those nutrients to the parts of your body where the microtears occurred, thereby speeding recovery. In addition, inflammation in the area is reduced.
What Kind of Massage is Best?
A study in the "British Journal of Sports Medicine" looked at the effectiveness of massage for muscle soreness and found that a variety of types of massage helped reduce soreness. This included traditional Swedish techniques, effleurage or stroking, petrissage or kneading, and tapotement or tapping.
Precautions for Massage
You should use caution with massage if you have an active fever or a contagious disease, are taking a medication that causes increased bleeding, have edema from a heart or kidney problem, have decreased sensitivity to touch, have an acute inflammatory disease or phlebitis, or have had a recent surgery or acute trauma. You should not have massage if you are in a state of decreased cognitive awareness due to drugs or alcohol.
References
- National Holistic Institute: Massage Therapy Careers
- Sports Injury Clinic.net: Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness
- massagetherapy.com: The Benefits of Massage
- "British Journal of Sports Medicine": The Effects of Massage on Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness; JE Hilbert, et al.; 2003
- nysed.gov: Precautions for Massage/Bodywork Therapy
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