How to Treat Sporting Injuries With Sports Massage

Sports massage can be a pleasant and effective part of how you treat your sports injuries, producing immediate, noticeable improvements in how you feel. Relieving muscle stress through sports massage will not only help treat your current injuries, but it can also help prevent future sporting injuries.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Learn How Massage Can Help

1. See a physical therapist or sports therapist to evaluate your injury. Discuss other methods to be used in conjunction with sports massage to best treat your sporting injuries.
2. Use different kinds of sports massage to treat different kinds of sporting injuries, from pulled muscles to spasms to tendinitis.
3. Prevent injuries so you don't have to treat them! Realize that injuries are a common occurrence among athletes who are serious about their sport, and take steps to prevent sporting injuries before they occur. Having regular sports massage sessions can help by releasing tension in overworked muscles, reducing the risk of problems.

Familiarize Yourself With Different Kinds of Massage

4. Determine which kind of sports massage should be used to treat your sporting injuries and what you hope to accomplish with the use of massage. The three major kinds of therapeutic massage are soft tissue massage, deep tissue massage and friction massage.
5. Get a soft tissue massage to increase mobility, reduce swelling or inflammation and release tension in muscles.
6. Get a deep tissue massage to treat muscle spasms or to release tension and improve mobility in a specific joint or muscle group. This technique gradually increases pressure, massaging the deeper layers of muscle, and generally focuses on a smaller area than soft tissue massage.
7. Use friction massage to break down scar tissue and treat tendinitis. This is done by massaging the inflamed tendon at the point where it is most tender. This technique is somewhat painful but should yield immediately noticeable improvements.

Find a Sports Massage Therapist

8. Find a massage therapist who specializes in the kind of massage you need. Make sure your therapist is appropriately certified and is trained in the kind of massage you will receive.
9. Get recommendations for a massage therapist from your physical therapist, sports therapist or gym personnel.

Tips & Warnings

• There are some conditions under which massage therapy should not be used. Sports massage should not be attempted where there are open wounds, bruising, sprained ligaments, damaged blood vessels, cancer or tumors, or if you have a high temperature.
• Diabetics should be aware that sports massage has a similar effect as exercise on blood sugar levels.

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