Sports Massage
Sports massage is a hands on treatment that is used to soften and stretch tight tissues to allow the body to move comfortably and freely. Flexible soft tissues protect the joint by allowing good shock absorption, keeping them healthy and reducing discomfort. Soft tissues are the body tissues that are not bone and cartilage, they include, skin, muscle, ligaments, tendons and fascia. Having a regular sports massage can help keep you feeling great and increase your body’s health. Sports massage can be aimed at improving an athlete’s performance and returning them back to full fitness when injured, hence the name, but it is a treatment that is available to everyone.
The Benefits of Sports Massage
The body loves a regular massage because there are fabulous health benefits to be had. Deep tissue massage reduces soft tissue tension, and so helps to ensure good blood and lymph flow around the body, which are so important for good body and tissue health. Good fluid slow ensures the supply of nutrients for building new muscle tissue during repair of an injury, and removes toxins that build up during walking, sitting or exercising. Research suggests that massage may also be able to slow the release of the stress hormone cortisol and reduce high blood pressure.
If you are experiencing a time of increased stress, the immune system suffers and reduces your ability to fight common illnesses, which affects your overall health. Improving your circulation through sports massage can help cell regeneration; hormone release and lymphatic system response and so improve immune response. There are a few research studies that have looked at the effects of massage on various aspects of health, including one that has looked at the level of cytotoxicity of NK cells (ability of the cell to kill unwanted invaders) and the effect on weight gain of premature babies in a NICU clinic. They found that massage helped the immune system and increased weight gain in the babies that had massage, versus the group that didn’t get treated.
Healthy Body Systems
If we are too stiff to move freely our heart and lungs can’t maintain their health. Releasing the ribs and diaphragm helps your lungs expand and take in more oxygen. Digestion, constipation and painful periods can all be helped by massage and a general exercise routine.
Sports Injury & Rehabilitation
Our aim at Osteopathy Letchworth is to provide you with treatments designed to get you back to full fitness, as soon as humanly possible. Muscles, tendons and ligaments can all cause problems which reduce an athlete’s capacity to perform at an optimum level. Sports massage works on the troubled soft tissues to restore optimum function. Sports massage helps to breakdown fibrous tissue, scar tissue and adhesions in overworked tissue that cause stiffness and pain during training and recovery, not to mention inflexible tissues that are prone to injury. Our clients have said that a regular massage during event training helps performance during the event. Stay in peak performance state with a sports massage at Osteopathy Letchworth.
Avoid Injury with Rehabilitation
As well as sports massage, we can help you with the right rehabilitation training and stretches to optimise your performance and help avoid future injury.
Regular Maintenance with Sports Massage
Come and have a regular maintenance with Osteopathy Letchworth’s Lorna James, Sports Massage Therapist. This will allow her to provide all the health benefits mentioned above, but to also be able to monitor the condition of your muscles and other soft tissues which can help spot problems before they occur.