Sports massage in research – issues

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