If you've read yesterday's Straits Times (ST 190915, page C12) article on how recovering well can contribute to improved performance, you would have read that the author wrote that "there are no convincing studies to show the correlation between massages and athletic performance".
Gino has written on Sports massage before. There was a funny story about a Singapore Olympic swimmer in that post. And even a strange comment from a principal physiotherapist from a hospital suggesting massage may cause nerve damage and strokes???
Yes massage cannot push toxins from muscles to your bloodstream. Neither can it flush lactic acid from your muscles.
What massage does is it allows you to tolerate and endure harder training since it can hasten recovery (by softening fascia and making your muscles relax) and allows you to train hard again quicker.
And if you can consistently train harder without getting injured? Surely that means improved athletic performance.
There are many different ways to locate and interpret published studies, so you just have to be mindful of what you read.
For more evidence to show that sports massage helps, please have a look at the references in this post.
No comments:
Post a Comment