Sports Massage & Soft Tissue Therapy for performance
What do I mean by performance?
Competing at your best? Yes!
Returning to your favourite sport after an injury? Yes!
Enjoying a new sport or activity and improving? Yes!
Being able to do all your daily activities more easily and with less discomfort? Yes!
Performance to me is the ability for you to be able to do what you need to and to your best capability without pain or discomfort.
Many of us have had the niggling, reoccurring issue within an area of our body that we feel is holding us back. Sometimes it’s a sensation of pain or a feeling of restriction when moving, lifting or carrying. Less than ideal postural habits also play a role in poor soft tissue mobility.
Mostly we ignore it and eventually it gets worse and results in increased pain and restricted mobility or we stop doing the activity we enjoy all together.
How soft tissue therapy and sports massage helps is by assessing your movement pattern to identify what may be causing your issue and to use a variety of techniques to facilitate relaxation within the shortened muscle fibres and improve muscle and soft tissue mobility and reduce overall pain and restrictions.
Incorporating soft tissue therapy and sports massage as part of your training regime and lifestyle can help you to overcome your pains and increase your muscle strength and mobility.(1)
Here’s how soft tissue therapy and sports massage can help you:
Reduce muscle tension – Sport massage techniques applied to tense and shorten muscles create a feeling of relaxation within the muscle helping us to relax and let go of the tension we tend to hold onto – Think about how a lot of us hold tension in our shoulders.(2)
Improve range of motion – Muscle injuries and restrictions occur mainly due to tissues being in a shortened position, lengthened position or muscles being less active or inhibited. Soft tissue therapy will help to lengthen shortened muscles and increase strength your inhibited muscles to improve muscle and joint range of motion.(3)
Reduce your risk of injury – If your muscles are not functioning as well as they could be this can increase your risk of strains, sprains and imbalances. Attending a regular soft tissue therapy appointment will help maintain muscle function and mobility and reduce your risk of future injury.(4)
2020 has been a very strange year for all of us but it has also allowed us to appreciate the importance of being able to move and perform and to get back to being more active and looking for ways to improve our health. Injuries and soft tissue restrictions can prevent us from performing as best we can but they don’t have to.
If you would like more information to find out more about how soft tissue therapy and sports massage can help you, please get in touch.
- Effects of Massage on Muscular Strength and Proprioception After Exercise-Induced Muscle Damage
Shin, Mal-Soon1; Sung, Yun-Hee2 2015 - The Role of Massage in Sports Performance and Rehabilitation: Current Evidence and Future Direction
Jason Brummitt, MSPT, SCS, ATCa 2008 - Effectiveness of massage therapy on the range of motion of the shoulder: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Young-Ran Yeun1 2017 - Effectiveness of Manual Therapy and Stretching for Baseball Players With Shoulder Range of Motion DeficitsLane B. Bailey, PT, PhD, CSCS,*† Charles A. Thigpen, PT, PhD, ATC,‡ Richard J. Hawkins, MD,§ Paul F. Beattie, PT, PhD, OCS,∥ and Ellen Shanley, PT, PhD, OCS‡ 2017
