The City2Surf is coming up this weekend, and for all of you out there who are training hard, we thought it might be a good time for you to start thinking about your recovery!
According to the American Massage Therapy Association, massage can improve performance, reduce pain, prevent injury, encourage focus and shorten recovery time.
The Benefits of Massage
- Massage helps blood vessels dilate – which is important to deliver fresh oxygen and nutrients to muscles and other tissues and remove waste products. It even lowers your heart rate.
- Massage increases and enhances circulation – this can help with relieving any muscle tension, reducing soreness and make for a faster recovery.Â
- Massage can also improve muscular flexibility.
- Massage reduces inflammation – which helps both with pain relief and muscle building, while encouraging their muscle recovery
- Massage can also help psychologically – it reduces stress and anxiety, as well as enhancing your ability to focus on the task at hand.
- Helps you monitor muscle tone (as an athlete).
- Help prevent injury
- Reduce muscle tension
- Decrease post-training stiffness and soreness
When to Schedule Your Massage
While training for an event, it can be beneficial to have a massage once per week. In the week leading up to the event, you should try to book a pre-race massage 3-5 days before. If you can schedule it on a rest day, that is best. To help with post-race recovery, a massage should be booked 2-5 days afterwards, to allow for the initial post-race muscle soreness to subside.
