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Athlete getting a calf massage
Few things compare to the sheer delirium experienced when crossing the finish line on race day. Your mind plays a dizzying montage of your hardest training days. You anxiously survey the crowd for your loved ones, practically blubbering at the pride they wear on their faces. You can even hear the “Chariots of Fire” theme song echoing somewhere in the distance (no, wait, that’s just your Spotify playlist). Whether you’re fresh off of a mud run, triathlon, or last weekend’s Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon, it’s important to take a step back and appreciate the time and grit that got you here.
But wait, your (body)work isn’t quite done, as far as your muscles are concerned—they need some TLC, and one way to give it to them is through massage therapy. “So many more people are weekend warriors training for all these races now, so it’s important to understand that you don’t have to be some big-time athlete to benefit from sports massage,” says Joanie Holst, massage therapist and associate professor at Northwestern Health Sciences University. “It’s really about working with the active individual.”
If massage therapy isn’t a part of your recovery plan, it should be. Here, five tips on how the power of touch can help you become a better athlete.
- Post-race, sidle up to the line at the massage table—ASAP. Before you leave all that euphoric energy at the racecourse to go celebrate (or worse: immediately go horizontal!), stick around the finish line and head over to where the team of therapists are posted up. “There’s usually long wait times to get treated—at Grandma’s Marathon for instance, people can wait up to about an hour and a half,” says Holst. “A post-event massage commonly lasts between 15 and 20 minutes.” An hour-plus wait may seem daunting at first brush, but there’s a lot of ROI in those 15 to 20 minutes: the benefits will extend well into the coming week. “Done right through the athlete’s clothing, it’s a big-picture massage where we don’t stop and linger in any spots but rather administer an overall flushing that helps the body decongest from all the exercise it did,” she says. In other words, a hyper release of toxins. Holst says she’s regularly told by participants that they can climb stairs much more easily within a matter of two to three days post-race.
- ...But if you skipped the massage table, there’s still hope for relief. If waiting in line is out of the question, try to book some time with a massage therapist within three to five days of the race finish. “We recommend getting a massage within the two-hour window of your race finish for optimal benefits, however, there’s something to be said about getting a maintenance massage later in the week,” she says. The body will be busy processing the work it did in the race, and a maintenance massage will assist the recovery of the tissues by lengthening and broadening them.
- Don’t let the post- or pre-event massage replace your normal warmup and cooldown. Stretching is crucial for performance and muscle health, especially for long-distance runners who run the risk of losing flexibility due to their high-mileage training. “We would never tell people to just get a massage before or after their runs or races and to not do anything else,” says Holst. “It’s an adjunct to your normal cooldown. If it’s pre-event, it’s adjunct to your normal warmup before the event.”
- Make maintenance massages a part of your fitness routine. Training season may be behind us (for the most part), but this seasonal lull will give you time to find a therapist to get to know your body and how to prime it for the next major event. “The maintenance massage I do with you and the next person uses the same basic techniques, it’s just that in between sessions, you’re training or getting ready for training and they’re raising kids and working at their daily job,” she explains. “Everybody uses their body differently but it’s the same structures that create movement: your muscles working together with your tendons, your ligaments, your fascia. The motion doesn’t matter, it’s the overuse pattern that I begin to recognize in your body.” Beyond providing the benefits associated with your typical massage—relaxation, stress reduction, etc.—it helps active individuals improve their range of motion, gives the soft tissue more flexibility, and boosts overall tissue health, which helps to reduce tenderness and soreness. Particularly helpful for weekend warriors who may have a propensity to overdo it. (Editor’s note: guilty as charged.)
- It’s OK to reach for your foam roller in between sessions—just don’t overdo it. Holst explains foam rollers like this: your roller applies pressure or compression to an area or a specific structure (i.e., muscle), which reduces soreness. So in other words, one approach. A sports massage, or a massage of any variation, gets into the muscle, layer by layer, where it won’t be getting pushed past what it’s willing to release in that moment. “With massage, we offer many more approaches of how to work with an area.” That being said, [using a foam roller] may be effective for some people when performed correctly. Holst’s tips? Do it at a moderate speed (going too fast usually results in more pain), apply pressure that’s uncomfortable but not unbearable, and roll for one to three minutes (too much time and you risk being sore the next day). “Like sports massage, it should be used in conjunction with other things such as stretching and not instead of it,” she says. Enjoy both your run and the recovery!
Located in Bloomington, Northwestern Health Sciences University is a pioneer in integrative natural healthcare education, offering degree programs in chiropractic, acupuncture, Chinese medicine, massage therapy, nutrition, post-bac, pre-health/pre-med and B.S. completion. Their clinic is open to the public and provides chiropractic treatment, massage therapy, acupuncture, Chinese medicine, naturopathic medicine, and physical therapy.
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