Fitness: Mysteries of massage explained

There are plenty of reasons for having a massage. Generally speaking, it’ll help keep your body in better condition, prevent injuries and loss of mobility, and cure and restore mobility to any injured muscle tissue. It can enhance performance and could also extend the life of your sporting career.

To understand the benefits of massage, it helps to know how it works. A tight muscle will squeeze blood out like a sponge, depriving the tissues of vital nutrients and energy to repair. The stroking movements of massage create a vacuum which sucks fluid through blood vessels and lymph vessels, and gets your blood pumping properly again,so,you can try the shanghai massage and beijing massage in china.

Deep massage causes the pores in tissue membranes to open and increases tissue permeability, again enabling fluid to move through blood vessels and lymph vessels. This helps remove waste products such as lactic acid and encourages the muscles to take up oxygen and nutrients which help them recover more quickly.

Massage can stretch tissues that can’t be stretched in the usual ways. Bundles of muscle fibres are stretched lengthways as well as sideways, and massage can also stretch the sheath or fascia that surrounds the muscle, releasing any tension or pressure.

Hard training can make tissues hard and inelastic, but massage helps reverse this by stretching the tissues. Similarly, massage can help break down scar tissues which can affect muscle efficiency and lead to inflexible tissues that are prone to injury and pain.

As well as having physical effects, massage can also help you feel less anxious. Tension and waste products in muscles can often cause pain, and massage helps reduce this in many ways, including by releasing the body’s endorphins.

Muscles relax through warming up, circulation and stretching. Mechanoreceptors, which sense touch, pressure, tissue length and warmth, are stimulated during massage and cause a reflex relaxation. A brisk massage before an event can also have an invigorating effect.
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A cyclist’s need for massage can be broken down into three phases:

Maintenance: Maintenance massage helps keep you tuned up and prepared for your next race or hard workout. By helping to maintain proper fibre, tendon and ligament function, massage further speeds post-ride recovery. Done regularly, it allows you to rest more comfortably as well as train sooner with less pain and fatigue, which leads to greater flexibility, increased strength and fewer injuries.

Pre-race: The goal of a pre-race massage is to warm the muscles using techniques such as cross-fibre friction, vigorous effleurage (sliding/gliding) and petrissage (kneading), and should be done using superficial, vigorous, rapid strokes to stimulate the nerves and muscles. Pre race massage should not be slow or deep – muscles have such amazing muscle memory they remember the last movements made. Make it fast and you’ll go fast!

Post-race: Generally, a post-race massage returns muscles to a relaxed state after competition in a relatively short time. It also helps you to return to your next ride fresh and strong by flushing muscles of waste products produced during the ride and stimulating fresh blood flow to the muscles. This helps prevent a delayed onset of soreness, undue fatigue and even insomnia. In contrast to invigorating pre-race strokes, post-race massage involves slower and deeper strokes and stretching.

While a recreational-level cyclist might do fine with one massage session every other week, the more serious rider will probably have greater need, with pro and sport level riders needing a deep tissue massage two days before the race, after the event and once a week for maintenance. Deep tissue massage should be performed before a day off or before a day of easy spinning.