Sports Massage

What is Sports Massage?

Sports Massage uses many Swedish, Deep Tissue and stretching techniques designed to help the body prepare, recover from, and enhance performance during extreme physical exertion. It helps athletes prepare for a big event, recover faster after exercising, prevent injuries and recover from injuries.

In pre-event sports massage, the massage will take place an hour or two before the event and will be a shorter massage, around 15 to 30 minutes. The massage is a stimulating massage using compression techniques on the areas of the body that will be used in the sport to warm the muscles and increase blood flow and circulation.

In post-event sports massage, the massage will take place within an hour or a day of the event to help the body to recover from the physical exertion, rid the body of toxins and lactic acid, and prevent soreness and stiffness.

During training, sports massage helps the athlete to train more aggressively and enhance performance. It is used to prevent injuries and to recover from injuries by breaking up scar tissue and increasing range of motion.

Therapists who are trained in sports massage can work in a physical therapy center, in a chiropractic office, in a fitness center, a medical office, at sporting events, for sports teams, or have their own private practice and work directly with athletes, as well as other venues.

What is the History of Sports Massage?

Sports Massage originated thousands of years ago in Rome and Greece. Sports massage was prescribed for the Gladiators both before and after physical exertion by Roman physicians. Sports massage became widely accepted in the Soviet Union and other communist countries in the 1960s. The Soviets had massage therapists travel with their athletes and work with them on an ongoing basis. Sports massage gained popularity in the 1980s and 1990’s in Europe and the United States and became part of the training programs for professional athletes.

What are the Benefits of Sports Massage?

• Helps athletes prepare for events
• Enhances circulation and blood flow
• Helps athletes recover from events
• Helps to remove toxins from the body
• Helps to flush out lactic acid from the muscles
• Helps athletes to recover from injuries
• Helps to break up scar tissue
• Helps to increase range of motion
• Decreases joint pain
• Helps to prevent injuries

What is a typical Sports Massage Session Like?

The client lies on a massage table and can be either dressed or undressed. More emphasis is placed on the areas of the body which are being used in the sport or that are experiencing pain. The therapist will sometimes work on the entire body with an emphasis on the problem areas or just work on the problem areas. Stretching is often incorporated into the routine.

If it is pre-event sports massage, the client is usually dressed and the motions are quick and fast compression massage strokes on the affected areas.

Training

Sports massage training is provided as part of the curriculum of most massage schools. For further training, check out the following organization which provides a home study program in Sports Massage with CE credits.

http://www.integrative-healthcare.org/programs/sports-massage.htm

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