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Massage

As a sportsman or woman your performance counts. Adding sports massage to your workout routine can improve your performance. As the training and playing hours pile up, so do the aches and pains. These little aches and pains can turn into nagging or even more serious injuries. After a strenuous workout or race, sports massage will hasten your recovery and alleviate any pain. You may find that you will benefit from a 30 minute session on a particular problem area, or a longer session for more general maintenance work.

Athletes around the world rely on massage as an important part of their training regimen. Sports massage techniques, when used regularly, can increase the blood flow that is needed for recovery. Additionally, sports massage improves the range of motion and strength of injured muscles and accelerate their healing process. With a full recovery you will be able to increase your workouts and allow your body to adapt to a higher level of stress.

Sports massage can:

	Enhance body awareness
	Identify problem areas before they develop into injuries
	Remove trigger points formed as a result of injury
	Relax and stretch muscles
	Improve range of motion
	Restore suppleness and elasticity
	Relieve pain and stress
	Free muscle adhesions and soften scar tissue caused by injury or overuse
	Improve circulation
	Flush out toxins that cause muscle stiffness and soreness
	Relax the body and mind
	Speed recovery and healing from exertion

Why carry soreness and stiffness from your last session or game and let it effect the next? Instead take measures to speed your recovery from your exertion so you can reach a higher level next workout? Sports Massage provides an ingredient for the complete recovery!

Sports Massage techniques may differ as you have different needs at different times.

Pre-sport: Before sport, massage works as an adjunct to your warm-up, to increase your circulation and flexibility, and leave your muscles resilient and ready to go.

Post-sport: After a hard session you need a massage that will increase your circulation to speed the removal of fatigue toxins, relieve your muscle spasms and prevent soreness.

Fine-tuning: For regular fine-tuning you need a massage that will search out the areas of biomechanical stress in your muscles and relieve them, before they become problems, enabling you to train harder and more consistently.

Injury Rehabilitation: For Injury Rehab. You need a massage that will speed your healing, increase your range of motion and reduce scar tissue to allow the muscle to expand/contract normally.

Recovery & Rest

Recovery following a game or training session naturally occurs but certain strategies help optimise the process and can leave you better able to recuperate and so get more from your next session.

A cool down followed by static stretches of the often effected muscles can reduce the occurrence and severity of muscle soreness and aid recovery.

A good structure of cool down following training or a game would be as follows:

	Cool down with light cardiovascular (aerobic) exercise, light jogging, skipping and bounding, walking for example for several minutes, loosening off as you go, trying to relax the muscles.
	Further cool down with dynamic stretches (see strength and conditioning page for examples of these exercises), again light and easy, low effort
	Static stretches of the major muscle groups held for 15-20 seconds, coordinated with your breathing to aid relaxation.

All of the above can be performed in a pool.

To further aid this routine, though it takes some courage, use cold water showers or baths at the end of the session. 30 seconds at a time (not your head though) followed by 2-3 minutes of warm water, repeated 3-4 times should be enough. Dry off and dress immediately following this. Then rehydrate adequately, alcohol does not rehydrate!

Although it sounds time intensive and the last thing you want to be doing, it does work, and worth trying if you take your sport seriously.

Adequate rest and recovery is essential following playing and training and should be taken as seriously as both.

Rest and Relaxation

Rest is essential for both your recovery and well being. Many of us run around from work to home, to training, to the pub and to all sorts of other work and social functions. There is a need to balance this with adequate time not just to sleep but to relax. Taking time to take a walk, sitting and reading, going fishing, spending time with family or any other activity you consider to be relaxing contributes to the restorative processes that take place following your playing and training. Asides from the physical benefits the time out you take for yourself also positively effects your mental health. Good rest and recuperation relieves stress and helps you stay sharp, think problems through and stay focused on your goals.

At the very least you should take 10 -15 minutes following exercise or a game to sit and rest. It has been shown that immediately following physical exertions your immune system is not firing on all cylinders. Rushing off after a match or training session leaves you more vulnerable to infection.

Sleep

It is during sleep that the hormones that govern muscular growth and repair are most active. With poor sleep habits and broken sleep you are not optimising your growth and development capabilities.

Try and get 7-8 hours of quality sleep. Drinking alcohol or coffee, eating meals high in carbohydrates reduces the quality of sleep and actually inhibits growth and repair. Try and develop consistent and good quality habits of sleep. It can make all the difference and makes the most of your hard training efforts.