As the use of massage in sport has grown over the recent
years, so too has the amount of research looking at its effects on performance,
recovery, mental readiness etc. Over the next few weeks I’m going to be delving
into some of this research to show you what the experts have found. However,
before I do I want to write this quick post about some of the things that must
always be kept in mind when reading research that looks at sports massage.
The first thing to remember is that it is difficult to
research the effects of sports massage for a number of reasons. Each massage
therapist will massage slightly different; different techniques used, different
pressure etc, each person will have their own individual needs and have varying
degrees of muscle tension. The reason that this makes research difficult is
that everything in academic research is aimed to be standardised. For example,
a study looking at carbohydrate loading will standardise how much carbohydrate
is eaten, what form is eaten, what it is eaten with, when it is eaten etc. As
such, research into sports massage has tried to have standard practices in
their studies. Have a look at the table below;
Table 2. Sports Massage Protocol
Time (min:sec) Technique
Supine position
0:00 - 1:00 Compression: lower leg/quadriceps
1:00 - 1:45 Effleurage: ankle to crease of hip
1:45 - 2:30 Thumb effleurage: anterior/lateral aspects lower
leg
2:30 - 3:00 Petrissage: quadriceps
3:00 - 4:30 Tapotement: quadriceps
4:30 - 5:00 Effleurage: ankle to crease of hip
Prone position
0:00 - 2:00 Compression: calf/hamstrings
2:00 - 2:30 Effleurage: ankle to upper thigh
2:30 - 3:30 Petrissage: calf/hamstrings
3:30 - 4:30 Tapotement: calf/hamstrings
4:30 - 5:00 Effleurage: ankle to upper thigh
This is taken from a journal article looking at the effects
of sports massage immediately after exercise on recovery. Yes, the study has
tried to standardise the massage techniques, right down to the second, so much
so that an electrical timer was set to go off at the relevant points so that
the therapist knew when to move on to the next part of the massage.
However, there are a number of problems with this. First of
all, every athlete’s needs will be different. For example, runners with different
running styles will have tension in different muscles or even different parts
of the same muscle. Therefore it would be stupid to allocate equal time to each
part of the leg. If one part is more sore/tired/tense than the other, a good therapist
would spend more time on that specific part.
Second, this protocol doesn't mention anything about
pressure. In fact, many studies looking at sports massage to aid recovery fail
to take into account pressure. One study that has looked specifically at
pressure though looked at light stroking, “medium” and “hard” pressure. Clearly
it is difficult to quantify massage pressure, but this study found that the “hard”
pressure was the only one of the 3 to aid recovery.
One of the other big problems with research into sports
massage is its relevance to practice. For example, the above protocol is 10
minutes. For a recreational runner at the end of a road race, this is about the
amount of time they would get and it would be as a little relaxer at the end of
a tough run. But what about Mo Farah after the 5K heats at the Olympics? Or the
Spanish Football team after the semi-final of the Euros. The difference is that
the recreational runner doesn’t have to perform or train the next day or the
next few days. If the point of the massage is to aid recovery for an event or
training session either the next day or in a couple of days then it would
probably need to last longer than 10 minutes.
These are just some of the issues when looking at sports
massage in the academic research. For me, there are nowhere near enough studies
in the area and a minority of good studies. Yes, there are difficulties with
standardisation. But sports massage now needs to be broken down into its
different techniques, into different pressures etc to see which is more
effective so that it can be optimised in the same way as “warm-ups” before
sport have been.
So, there you have a brief introduction of some of the issues of research into sports massage. If you have any questions or comments then feel free to email or write in the comments section.
For sports massage bookings in swansea, visit www.jamiepughperformance.co.uk
