When we train hard, we put our muscles, ligaments (a band of tough fibrous tissue connecting bones or cartilages or supporting muscles or organs) and tendons (band of inelastic tissue connecting a muscle to a bone) under great stress. They experience micro traumas due to the fact they are pulled and stretched and contracted. The body heals these mini scars on your muscles fairly easily with a lot of rest.
The body heals them by generating more collagen. Collagen is a fibrous scleroprotein (a simple protein) located in bones and cartilage and tendons and other connective tissues, it yields gelatin on boiling and acts as a “cement” to rebuild tissues. Actually its role is to give strength and flexibility to the connective tissues.
Massage aids healing by breaking down excess collagen that is located between muscle fibers and spreads it to the healing fibers. Massage increases circulation in the healing tissues and helps flushing out lactic acid prisoner in the muscles. Massage aids by helping muscles to relax and lengthening back to normal.
Massage therefore helps activate and thorough the healing of tissues.
Vigorously massaging muscles before and after effort helps hastening recovery and avoiding muscle soreness.
Massage comes in many forms: Swedish massage is the most widely performed kind of massage.
It is knows to have a relaxing effect on the nervous system; besides it helps muscle tone and helps prevent atrophy from forced inactivity due to illness.
Swedish massage takes usually one hour and it is perfect for people who have sore muscles; it helps prevent problems in the soft tissue and muscles, preventing injuries.
Shiatsu massage unlocks energy that causes muscle pain, loss of vitality and illnesses. The Shiatsu practitioner applies pressure to vital points of the body to decongest them.
Sports massage is well known by professional athletes, but amateurs can also benefit from it. It is a vigorous massage that traces and targets specific muscles in order to prevent injuries and release stressed points of the body.
Sports massage is also used to stimulate athletes before performance; it is also called “excitatory massage”. It uses shorter strokes, preparing muscles for exertion by exciting the nerve endings in the skin, muscles, and blood vessels that stimulate reflex reactions.
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