Sports massage: What are the benefits of having a regular massage?

When you work full-time, squeezing some training into your weekly schedule can be a real challenge – and that often means you don’t get an opportunity to properly recover from your sessions.

While it’s fair to say that nothing can replace genuine recovery time, having regular sports massages – which involve the manipulation of soft tissue – can certainly be beneficial. Below are just a few of the ways that sports massages can help your body to recuperate, boosting your chances of performing well in the future:

Physical – Suffering from delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) after a hard training session is somewhat inevitable. Typically, our muscles are left feeling tighter and less flexible. During a sports massage, our bodies are able to relax, which increases the mobility of our joints and restores our range of movement.
This accelerates recovery, enabling us to come back stronger and in less pain.

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Physiological – Sports massages help our muscles to relax, and that makes a huge difference to our blood flow. With our vascular system under less stress and tension, it can perform more efficiently. This allows nutrients to be delivered and waste products to be removed from the muscles at a faster rate.

Psychological – As anyone who’s had one will know, a sports massage is a great way to induce calmness and relaxation. This can help to eliminate any tension that’s built up over the preceding days and weeks, and reduce anxiety, leaving us feeling invigorated and full of energy for the challenges ahead.

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Nick Beer Rehabilitation strength and conditioning coach

About

Former British elite triathlete Nick has a BSc Hons in biomedical sciences from the University of Sheffield, an MRes in human sciences from the University of Loughborough and is currently at UCL studying for an MSc in sports medicine. Nick's extensive scientific knowledge on the functioning of the human body, coupled with his background as an elite athlete and experience of working in a multi-disciplinary team, have given him the perfect platform to develop a very successful career as a reconditioning performance coach. Nick's broad understanding of surgical procedures and different types of imaging techniques in diagnosing and treating injuries, ensures that a correct, thorough and safe rehabilitation programmes are administered. Overall, it’s his unique ability to creatively orchestrate individually tailored rehabilitation programmes that successfully transition patients into strength and conditioning coaching plans. This invariably leads to patients returning back to their sporting activities fully recovered and in better condition than prior to their injury.