Accelerate Your Workout Recovery Time With Massage Therapy

Are you allowing your muscles to fully recover between workouts? Overcoming pain by doing resistance exercises is not only agonizing but counterproductive.

As you lift weights or do strenuous exercise, your muscle fibers will develop micro tears. This is what stimulates muscles to repair themselves bigger and stronger than ever. But muscles take time to heal. And if you go to the gym again before your muscles have fully recovered, all you are doing is causing more damage to your muscles, stunting their growth.

Fortunately, you can speed up your recovery time from your workout with massage therapy.

Help your muscles recover faster

Studies show that massaging sore muscles for about 10 minutes immediately after hours of rigorous exercise has a dramatic impact on the healing response of muscle cell genes.

One type of gene acts as an anti-inflammatory agent, reducing pain and soreness in the muscles.

Another gene contributes by increasing the production of mitochondria in the muscles. Mitochondria are the cell’s energy source and a crucial agent for muscle contraction. Therefore, an increase in the production of mitochondria will result in faster healing and growth of muscle fibers.

Massage versus ice

Traditional treatment for sore muscles includes applying ice to the affected area and applying anti-inflammatory medications. While these remedies are quite effective in reducing muscle inflammation, they do have a major drawback in that they tend to slow or inhibit muscle repair and growth.

On the other hand, it has been repeatedly shown that massage not only relieves pain and soreness, but also accelerates the healing and growth of muscles.

However, the researchers found that post-workout massages are ineffective in reducing lactic acid in the muscles. Even if this had been your reason for getting a massage, the benefits of post-workout massage are too important to dismiss.

The Leg Massage Experiment

Now, getting a post-workout massage has more to love than the pleasant sensation of a professional masseuse kneading your muscles. In this particular experiment, the volunteers spent hours of rigorous training. The workout was designed to produce pain in the participants’ muscles for about a couple of days afterward.

At the end of their training, each participant was given a 10-minute massage on one leg, leaving the other leg as a control for the experiment. After examining the genetic profiles of muscle tissue samples from both legs, they found huge differences in the chemical composition between them.

The genetic profiling process revealed that massage activated the properties of genes that controlled muscle inflammation while stimulating muscle healing and growth.

Stronger, faster and bigger muscles

An additional experiment reveals that after a couple of months of intense training, the volunteers began to achieve stronger, faster, bigger, and fitter muscles. This is mainly due to the dramatic increase of up to 100 percent in the volume of the mitochondria.

Mitochondria are primarily responsible for oxygen uptake at the cellular level. Therefore, the more your muscles have of these mitochondria, the more efficient they become at extracting the oxygen necessary for the repair and regeneration of muscle fibers.

The experiment has clearly shown that massage after exercise plays a very important role in muscle recovery and growth.

Massage Therapy in Sports Medicine and Conventional Healthcare

In recent years, massage therapy has been gaining ground in conventional medical care, thanks to experts who meticulously studied the effect of massage on human muscle tissue and how various genes respond to it. And so, even in conventional and sports medicine, massage has earned respect as a viable treatment for a number of muscular and circulatory conditions.

Beside the control group, the massaged muscles healed faster, suffered less inflammation, and gained more strength than the control group that simply rested and received conventional medications.

Find a masseuse

It is important to find a masseuse that meets your needs. Follow these simple steps on how to do it.

1. Identify your fitness goals and needs

Although the primary goal of massage therapy for all athletes is to speed recovery, you may also be interested in other benefits, such as:

• Stress reduction
• Relieve muscle tension
• Pain relief
• Improving your mental state
• Improving your flexibility

2. Compare prices

Get a referral from your gym, healthcare provider, or a friend. This is because you want to exclude those who run your business illegally, those who are self-taught, or those who are unfamiliar with your specific fitness goals.

Other places to consider include wellness centers, chiropractic clinics, massage schools and spas. Give them a call and see what they have to offer.

3. Ask for your rate

Some therapists offer different rates for different massage methods. Others offer a flat rate. Do you offer discount packages? These are just a few of the things to consider when talking about your masseur’s fees.

Mechanical massagers

For those times when your masseur is unavailable, a mechanical massager like the air compression leg massager Is the best option. For runners, cyclists, endurance athletes, or anyone serious about their fitness and training, this versatile air compression leg massager offers three settings to meet your needs.

Helps improve circulation in your legs and calf by providing soothing relief from your aches and pains. It works by filling the cuff with air, holding the air for a moment, releasing the air, and then the process repeats.

This leg massager mimics the natural massage action that is so effective in improving blood circulation and relieving symptoms caused by lymphoma, neuropathy, and similar ailments.