Sports Massage
Medical experts agree that regular exercise is an important element of a healthy lifestyle. Yet as healthy as it is, many types of exercise can leave your muscles tight and sore. And even light exercise such as walking and yoga can potentially lead to short- and long-term injury.
Sports-related injury is not inevitable, however. Sustaining your active lifestyle requires developing a variety of healthy routines all designed to keep your muscles healthy. Eating a healthy diet and maintaining adequate sleep patterns will ensure that your body has the energy it needs to stay active. And incorporating appropriate warm-up and cool-down activities and active stretching into your routine can help keep your muscles loose and avoid muscular injury.
Another element of a healthy lifestyle is sports massage. Sports massage is an excellent way to promote muscular flexibility and avoid the potential for sports-related injury. Sports massage, unlike other types of massage therapy, is specifically designed to work out tightness and inelasticity in active muscle groups, reduce port-workout soreness, and promote active recovery in muscles and soft tissue stressed by an active lifestyle. Sports massage can even reduce recovery times between workouts, to help you stay more active and healthy than ever.
Benefits of Sports Massage
You don’t need to be a professional sports player or competitive athlete to enjoy the benefits of sports massage. In fact, sports massage offers many benefits for anyone seeking to maintain a regular exercise routine, from biking or running to walking, yoga, or water aerobics.
When performed by a licensed massage therapist, sports massage can help:
- Improve muscle flexibility and elasticity, and even extent range of motion
- Relieve workout-related tension, discomfort, and pain in active muscle groups
- Promote muscular recovery to decrease recovery time between workouts
- Decrease healing time for existing injuries
- Prevent common sports- and overuse-related injuries
- Increase muscle growth and endurance performance by improving blood circulation
- Reduce blood pressure and heart rate
Your Unique Sports Massage Experience
Sports massage is a targeted massage technique designed to concentrate on specific muscle groups and areas of soft tissue stressed by exercise and an active lifestyle. Your specific sports massage will depend on the type or types of exercise you do, and will require a customized plan unique to you and your body.
Your specific sports massage may involve a variety of different massage techniques, including for example:
- Muscle energy: by actively contracting large muscular grouping, sports massage can help relax, stretch, and strengthen tight and inflexible muscles
- Trigger point massage repeatedly manipulates trigger points (also called “knots”) within large muscle groupings utilizing patterns of isolated pressure and release
- Myofascial release targets the fascia (the connective tissue around bones, muscles, and tendons) by alternatively relaxing and stretching the target zones
- Soft tissue release utilizes active, passive, and potentially even weight-bearing techniques in order to target stiff, tight tendons, fascia, and muscles
Unlike other types of massage, sports massage targets specific muscle groups stressed by your active lifestyle. Yet while sports massage isn’t generally performed for relaxation, studies have shown that sports massage can have psychological as well as physical benefits. Like more relaxation-focused massage techniques, sports massage can help lower anxiety, improve mood, and help promote better sleep.
Adding sports massage into your active lifestyle can help you sustain your regular exercise, support your physical fitness, and improve your health and well-being. So schedule your sports massage today!
Contact Urban Acupuncture Center in Columbus, OH For More Information
For more information about how acupuncture, massage therapy and other alternative healing treatments can help you, please contact the Urban Acupuncture Center Board Certified Licensed Acupuncturist’s team at Indianola Ave, Clintonville (614) 725-2488 | Main St, Westerville (614) 426-4406 or click here. Taking new patients in and around greater Columbus, Ohio.