Noora Eresmaa
I am a keen advocate for regular massage. As you may know, I’m also a keen runner, and as I’m getting older I’ve noticed the importance of taking proper care of myself if I want to keep running. For me this means having a a good night’s sleep, drinking enough water – and having sports massage therapy regularly.
The modern history of sports massage therapy is considered to began when the Flying Finn, Paavo Nurmi, brought his personal massage therapist to Olympic Games to Paris in 1924. Although his success wasn’t completely down to massage it must have helped as Mr Nurmi won a total of 5 gold medals – two of them within 2 hours of each other (in 1500 meters and 5000 meters).
Nowadays sport massage is not only for olympic athletes; anyone living an active lifestyle would benefit from one. Sport massage, like all the other massage styles, have several benefits for general wellbeing:
- Massage helps to relax by decreasing the heart rate, adrenaline and blood pressure.
- Long strokes moving towards the heart increase the lymphatic flow, thus help to remove waste products stored in muscles. This may derease the post exercise muscle soreness by reducing the concentration of lactate in the muscle fibres.
At Reflex Spinal Health a massage is specifically tailored to each guest personally. Having a regular massage can help to monitor the effects of training – learning to know those niggles that keep on coming back may indicate a bigger problem lying underneath. Sometimes a stubborn knot in the shoulder may result from a problem in the ankle (that’s me!), or symptoms in the left calf may result from an overuse syndrome in right calf. In most cases massage can help to identify the problem, and also treat it together with the chiropractors and/or osteopaths in Reflex Spinal Health.
Sports massage therapy is typically done in specific problem area, so don’t expect a full body sport massage treatment in an hour! Most of the massage session will be using traditional massage techniques, but also different stretching and deep tissue techniques will be used. These techniques address lesions and scar tissue deep in soft tissue, and help to decrease the muscle tone and improve flexibility of muscle tissue. This improved flexibility helps to achieve better performance, either training or taking part in a sport event.
One very common misbelief about sport massage is that it’s supposed to hurt. It’s not. There’s only one technique that is meant to cause pain, and I always warn before using it. So please, if there’s too much pressure, let the therapist know – massage is all about relaxation, and muscles cannot relax if they are cramping in pain. Massage also helps you maintain your correct upright posture.
By Noora Eresmaa, Sports Massage Therapist.
