For any regular runner, particularly those who are training for the marathon or any other long distance event, a huge challenge during training can be preventing injury. Failing that the next challenge for a runner would be limiting the effects and impact of an injury. By making sports massage therapy, something we offer here at City Rehab, part of your training we believe you’ll see a number of benefits. Benefits of regular therapy alongside your training include muscle stiffness and soreness reduced, faster recovery from your workouts, which gives you the ability to train more frequently. Sports massage can even help improve your posture and injury prevention overall. Let’s take a look at these in more detail.

Muscle stiffness and soreness reduced

If you think back to the last time you hurt yourself whether it was a scrape, a bump or even a running injury itself, you’ll find one of the first things you did was rub the area. Touch is an instinctive reaction to pain as well as a natural way to help the body heal. It’s also been scientifically proven to help kick start the body’s natural ability when it comes to healing too. Massage helps to increase the blood circulation within us and in doing so provides oxygen and nutrients to the tissues that need to recover. The manual pressure experienced during sports massage stimulates the arteriolar pressure and also increases the temperature of the muscle too. These two things combined help to enhance the exchange of substances between blood and tissue promoting metabolism and generally assisting the body during its remodeling phase after we workout. In addition to this, sports massage will also help break down scar tissue and any adhesions that would contribute to stiffness and pain during recovery.

Shorter recovery after workouts

Muscle soreness or DOMS (delayed onset of muscle soreness) is caused by waste products like lactic acid and carbonic acid. These will accumulate in the muscles after we workout however by increasing the circulation of the lymph flow through massage, these can be eliminated or in the most case severely reduced. During our workouts we can at times overwork or even traumatise the joints and the tissues that surround them. As a result of this they can sometimes tighten and become stiff. With the help of sports massage however we can improve the range of motion as well as muscle flexibility and decrease any muscle tension.

Improved posture

Sports massage therapy will stretch and loosen muscles that have become shortened during workouts. It will also help improve their range of motion too. In addition to this it will help to stimulate weak and flaccid muscles making them better able to support surrounding muscles. This combined will help rebalance the muscles significantly and can therefore dramatically improve posture by encouraging a more efficient movement and prevent (or at the very least reduce) current or future postural related injuries.

Faster rehabilitation after an injury

Sports therapy massage helps prevent and support the healing of injuries full stop. A lot of soft tissue injuries benefit from massage because of its ability to reduce the formation of scar tissue. It also helps influence the secretion of fluids that are necessary for tissue repair. This increased circulation of blood and lymph flow helps promote tissue regeneration as well as the reduction of inflammation. Massage can also be used to focus on specific muscles in order to keep them healthy and prevent any problems developing or any past injuries reoccurring.

Pain relief

Massage has also now shown to help reduce pain by blocking the pain signals that are usually sent to the brain. It’s also shown to encourage the relaxation of the muscles by stimulating the nervous system. This relaxation in turn can help reduce painful muscle spasms and cramping as well as enhance the blood flow to the nerves that have been damaged from an injury.

When it comes to running the majority of injuries tend to develop over time. They’re usually incurred through overuse or due to repeated impact. Clearly, given the nature of training involved when it comes to marathons, this is a huge concern for anyone preparing for or competing in the big event itself and the option of pulling out for some is simply not a consideration. To avoid having to pull out or worse still, compete when you aren’t working at your full capacity, we recommend not only seeking treatment early but also incorporating sports massage therapy into your training regime from the very beginning. If you haven’t already and are starting to feel a niggle then we recommend a visit as soon as possible. The best advice we can give is to get everything checked out as soon as possible to avoid causing further damage to an injury that may only be minor.

Here at City Rehab we offer a number of treatments aside from sports massage therapy should you need them and we’ll also be able to advise you on preventing further injuries in the future. With the help of our qualified physiotherapists we can have you injury free and training to the best of your ability up until the big day itself. Whether it’s prevention you need or help with a current injury then don’t hesitate to contact us today. We’ll make it so you’re only concern will be beating your personal best on the day. 

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