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The Benefits of a Sports Massage for Athletes
Sports massage is a special kind of Swedish massage used by many athletes to improve athletic performance, reduce the chance and recovery of injuries, and relax tense and stiff muscles. So what benefits can an athlete receive from a sports massage? Here are a few conditions that sports massage can ease:
Reduces the Chance of Injury
Tense muscles are more likely to be injured than relaxed muscles. Therefore, by receiving a sports massage to relax your muscles, it lessens your chance of injury. Sports massage can also reduce the frequency and severity of strains, pulls and aches in your muscles.
Improves Rage of Motion and Flexibility
Training too vigorously can cause muscles to become rigid. Sports massage can help muscles to become more relaxed, making them more flexible. A sport massage prior to a competition can reduce tension in the muscles, allowing muscles to be more relaxed and flexible, increasing your performance.
Shortens Recovery Time
Strenuous exercise can cause a great deal of strain or injury on the body. Sports massages can be therapeutic and help the body deal with this stress by helping the muscles relax. In addition, sports massage can help increase the flow of blood and lymph. This helps the body heal faster from injury, increase the removal of waste, and promotes general health, allowing the body the ability to recover more quickly. Sports massage can also help reduce swelling and inflammation, allowing you to recover from these conditions more quickly. It can also break up scar tissue caused by injury that makes your muscles stiff.
Improves Supply of Oxygen and Nutrients
An increase in blood flow through a sports massage enables muscles to get the proper amount of oxygen and nutrients, which allows muscles the ability to build new tissue.
Helps Eliminate By-Products of Exercise
When muscles tighten up, it restricts the flow of blood and lymph, causing wastes like lactic acid and uric acid to build up in the muscles. By increasing blood and lymph flow with a sports massage, it helps the body reduce these wastes caused by exercise.
Psychological Benefits
Sports massages can be relaxing and help reduce anxiety, improving your mood. While taking care of the physical body is important, it is also important to take care of your mind. Having your mind in a good place can give you an edge over athletes who are stressed.
Improves Motor Control
Sports massage improves the link between the mind and body, helping to increase the precision of your motor control.
Reduces Pain
Because of the increased blood and lymph flow, a sports massage can help nerves damaged by injury to heal faster, lessening your pain. In addition, sports massage lessens the pain from spasms and cramps.
The benefits of a sports massage are numerous. It is for this reason that many professional athletes retain a masseuse on retainer. Sports massage is a popular method of helping to reduce injury, as well as reduce the healing time for injuries. They can increase performance by reducing stiffness and soreness in muscles and allowing them increased range of motions and flexibility. If you think that sport massage may be right for you, speak with a trained practitioner to discuss the benefits a sports massage can provide to you.