In sport, however, most injuries occur through overuse, which often builds up unnoticed over a period of time. If treated as a one off event, without addressing the root cause of the overuse, a return to sport in the same way will be likely to reproduce the same injury again.

Sports Massage is dedicated as much to injury prevention as it is to injury treatment and rehabilitation. Apart from advice on how to use a ladder safely there is no physical treatment that can prevent a fall, but a skilled Sports Massage Therapist can give preventative treatment as well as advice for sports injuries.

A competitive sportsman is rarely completely satisfied with his or her performance and often aims for a level which is just beyond what they can actually achieve. So the overall objective of the sports massage therapist is to help enhance performance and enjoyment of sport, at whatever level of participation.

Sports Massage is targeted at preventing sports injuries and enhancing an athlete’s performance. Massage is the perfect adjunct to exercise; it helps people who participate in regular exercise of different kinds to keep physically, mentally and emotionally healthy. It improves their performance by keeping muscles at their peak of flexibility and strength and it reduces any unpleasant side effects of heavy exercise, such as stiffness and muscle soreness. Sports massage helps to alleviate stress and tension, which builds up in the body’s soft tissue during physical activity. Where minor injury occurs, due to over exertion and overuse, massage can break them down quickly and effectively.

Of course, depending on the level of that particular sport, anyone who is looking to improve their performance does so by adopting a training schedule specific to their sport. Usually involving a regime aimed at enhancing their skill, strength and endurance and /or speed. In seeking continuous improvement the athlete generally commits to a systematic increase in the level of training thereby subjecting their bodies to additional stress and controlled over-use.

Such stresses can lead to muscular imbalances, which may impede performance and cause discomfort. If ignored, these problems can becomes chronic and lead to more serious injuries, which ultimately may prevent an individual from training and competing at all.

Through a sports massage, applied skilfully, balance can be restored to the musculoskeletal system and tension release. Therefore playing a valuable part in any athlete’s preparation and recovery, injury prevention - typically used before, during and after athletic events to reduce fatigue, alleviate swelling, and ultimately prepares an athlete for optimum performance.

Regardless of your physical fitness or strength sports and remedial massage can be beneficial in promoting and maintaining the health of the body’s soft tissues whether you’re an athlete, a person who jogs once a week or person who is just very physically active in their everyday life.

As a massage therapist the massage medic is here to help you:

• Maintain your muscle
• Recover fast from intense training, fatigue and overuse
• Increase your training potential
• Reduce the potential for injury, pain and dysfunction!
• Identify and deal with potential injuries
• Improve the quantity and quality of training
• Enable fine-tuning of your training

What to expect with your sports massage?

A good massage therapist will not follow a set routine but will apply a variety of techniques that uniquely suite your particular needs at that time, and so each treatment will be slightly different.

Although good massage is deep and can be painful it should always feel like a good pain, and it should not be so deep that it is painful everywhere, only in the areas where there is a problem to be dealt with.

During a massage the therapist will explore the muscles very thoroughly and you will often discover areas of tenderness you did not know you had. These could be potential injury sites that can then be treated before they become a problem.

When?

The best time to have a massage is as soon after your hardest session (of the week) as possible, ideally on the same day, as any overuse condition if left untreated is likely to tighten up more over night. Everyone will respond slightly differently to massage - some prefer not to have a general relaxing treatment too soon before an event, whereas others may find the opposite is the case, so it is worth experimenting. Having regular treatments with the same therapist is obviously a good thing as you both get to know what techniques work best for you.

Pre & Post event massage

For the well-trained and prepared athlete, pre-event sports massage should achieve a mainly psychological benefit. As not everyone responds in quite the same way to massage it could be dangerous to try your first one just before a major event, it is better to try things out first to see what suits you best. A skilled therapist can apply techniques in different ways to either stimulate or relax the tissues. These can be used in a variety of combinations to help you feel and perform at your very best. Post-event massage always makes sense because it promotes recovery so well.

Sports massage when injured

Even with the most careful preparation, from time to time an injury may still occur. Continuing to train with a minor injury is definitely not going to aid its recovery, but rest alone may not be the best thing to do either. Although the damaged tissues will repair and stop causing pain after a period of rest the build up of scar tissue that can result may leave the muscle permanently weaker and less flexible. Massage is needed in addition to rest if this is to be prevented and full function is to be restored.

Massage can effectively treat the majority of minor soft tissue (muscle, tendon and ligaments), which are by far the most numerous of all sport injuries, but there are many other injuries which are more serious and may require other medical treatments. A properly trained Sports Massage Therapist should be able to identify the possibility of such conditions and know when a referral to a medical practitioner is necessary.