No magic - just sports massage

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 11, Issue 512, 16 November 1993, Page 16

No magic - just sports massage

by glyn hubbard dlp Therapeutic Massage NZATMP Sports massage has gained many converts over the last 25 years, with sportsmen and women who have become covinced that deep tissue massage especialiy can enhance athletic performance. Today all top athletes in the sports world make use of a sports massage therapist mainly for curative,

maintenance, preparation and recovery work. Sports massage involves the application of a diverse cross-sec-tion of soft-tissue and/or energy manipulations applied for the ultimate purpose of enhancing sporting performance. Sports massage therapists are trained to have a multi-stage model always in mind. this involves a continuing cycle of many phases: • Assessment: dealing with an athlete's current physical condition and working out a programme based on this state. • Curative: the addressing and treatment of any

disfunctions - soft-tissue injuries, inflammations, spasms, scar-tissue and adhesions. • Maintenance: the preventative stage of keeping an athlete in-jury-free, in peak physical condition, enabling a high training level. • Preparatory: the psy-cho-therapeutic psychology of training. • Pre-event: given up to 40-minutes prior to competition, to increase blood-flow, enhance flexibility thus reducing injury risks. • Post-event: restorative/recovery work. Flush out toxins, release muscle spasms, to allOw training again as soon as possible. • Re-assessment: address the last competitive effects. The role of the sports massage practitioner therefore involves the educating and counselling of athletes and their coaches regarding exercise physiology, training and conditioning principles, sports psychology, the actual sport involved, bio-me-chanics, the bio-me-chanics of injury as well

as* nutrition and gener'al health advice. Exercise is good for us as it provides healthy stress by elevating heart rate, increasing bloodflow to the skin, injecting tissues with oxygen, increasing the size and efficiency of the heart and lungs and releasing a variety of chemicals in the brain which make us feel better than before exertion. Exercise can also stress and strain muscle tissues, injure tendons and ligaments which are frequently stretched beyond their normal limits by enthusiastic athletes and/or by the demands of the sport, thus leading to a blood and fluid build-up in muscles leaving them stiff and sore. Anyone with soreness after a work-out knows what I am writing about - just ask the local students after a cross-country run or the 'Mountains to Sea' participants! Sports massage, even with properly applied techniques, is not a cure-it-all, but it will help to improve performance through synchronizing the muscle contractioris.

It performs seven functions: • Prevention of muscle and tendon injuries; • Reduction of strain and discoinfort of training; • Elimination of the ups and downs of training; • Helps cure chronic (over-use) injuries; • Helps heal acute injuries properly so the injured areas do not become a source of continued trouble; • Restoration of lost mobility; • Prevention of muscle spasms thus restoring normal muscle function. Sports massage is good for all sports - it is one of the basics of training - ask any top athlete! A guide-line as to how often you need a massage: Daily competition and for training camp work-outs - daily; Preseason training and inseason competition - 2/3 weekly; Early season - weekly; Off-season competitive, non-com-petitive athletes and for those who just wish to keep in shape with goodmuscle tone - monthly.