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Sports Massage

What Is Sports Massage?

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Sports massage is a soft tissue manual therapy technique which allows movement and pressure to be applied to the body.

 

This movement and pressure has proven to achieve positive health and wellbeing outcomes . Practitioners at Kinetic will apply various forms of techniques, however typically we tend to apply the Swedish techniques which consist of;

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  • Effleurage - A light stroking method which is used at the start of the massage to ease and comfort the patient. This light stroke also allows any ointments to be even applied on soft tissues/skin. Even pressure is applied, and in some cases, deep stroking can be done.

 

  • Petrissage - Various types of movement and strokes are done to achieve a petrissage massage. Some of these include kneading, picking up, rolling, and stripping. Utilising these techniques allows the clinician to achieve a deep sports massage by applying pressure which is greater than effleurage.

 

  • Tapotement - A quick repeated percussion movement which is used before an event. Various movements such as cupping, hacking, pounding and beating, is used across large muscle areas to achieve the effects of a massage without the deep relaxation. This technique is mostly used pre-event/pre-match in a sport setting.

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What Are The Benefits?

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Recent evidence published shows that massage is a non-invasive way to achieve pain modulation i.e help reduce pain. (NCCIH, 2018, Barill, Carroll and Porter, 2020).

 

The reduction in symptoms can allow patients to move better and perform activities/exercise without too much discomfort. Other effects that have been observed in the scientific literature is an increase in Range Of Motion (ROM) (Kong et al., 2013).

 

ROM is very important in the early stage of rehabilitation, before working on high load exercises an emphasis will be placed on achieving full ROM of the joint/tissue (Barill, Carroll and Porter, 2020). Once full ROM is achieved, progression to complex movements can be performed, which will assist in achieving long term results.

 

Other effects patients have reported in clinic are a decrease in headaches due to more relaxed tissues, increase in daily function and movement, reduction in stress and improved mood.

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It's important to understand that effects and benefits provided from a massage are short term. Changes in pain and ROM will last hours/ few days (Kong et al., 2013, NCCIH, 2018). However, these short-term effects offered by massage can be maintained with a patient centred rehabilitation plan (Cohen, 2011). When massage therapy is combined with a form of active treatment (exercise) it yields better short and long-term results (Cohen, 2011).

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Reference list

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