Have you ever wanted to skip gym days just dreading the post-workout aches? If you are athletic, you know what I’m talking about. However, the pain should never let you stop from being healthy or doing what you love. This is where post-workout massages come in.
Professional athletes often employ massage therapists and workout recovery tools, like the Exogun percussive therapy device, for faster recovery and to increase flexibility. Not only do massages make you feel and look better, but they also boost your energy!
In this article, we have discussed five of the best massages to help you recover from your intense gym routine quickly.
Top 5 Post-Workout Recovery Massage Used by Athletes:
1- Swedish Massage
Stress is neither good for the body nor the mind. Since it alleviates cortisol, it disrupts our immune response and makes us hypertensive. Fortunately, the Swedish massage can deal with the repercussions.
To start, it releases a hormone, serotonin, which improves your mood, reduces blood pressure, and regulates your sleep. Apart from this, it helps to reduce cortisol by decreasing another hormone called arginine.
If this was not enough, it helps to strengthen the immune system by boosting the number of white blood cells in the body too.
The massage involves rubbing your muscles with gliding motion towards your heart circulation. Besides this, therapists use long kneading strokes along with light tapping ones on top of your muscles.
In addition to this, some professionals even apply circular pressures, tapping, and stretch your muscles to help them heal after stress from a strenuous exercise.
One of the most common types of massage, this technique helps to relax your whole body effectively. The unique combination of strokes and stretching even improves blood flow and oxygen delivery to all the muscles. In return, it removes toxins and improves flexibility.
When to Get It?
Since it helps to relax your body and improve your sleep, the massage can be taken whenever you are stressed out about anything. It is especially beneficial to take it at the end of the day when you are ready to go to bed.
Who Should Get It?
This massage is useful for any person who holds a large amount of tension in their lower back, neck, and shoulders. Stress is more common in those who work long desk-jobs and exercise regularly.
2- Muscle Percussion Therapy Massage
Athletes’ favorite, muscle percussion therapy is probably the most efficient kind of massages for muscle recovery and reinforcement! Percussion therapy uses a muscle massager gun to send rhythmic, concentrated pressure pulses to the muscle tissues.
Exogun is a famous percussion therapy device that comes with four massaging heads to target different areas of your body. Its six-speed settings help you to get the most effective therapy of all time.
Such that, the Exogun delivers soft yet fast blows in a short period. In return, the continuous tapping shocks the muscle, allowing them to release their tension and heal quickly.
Since the vibrations go deep inside through your soft tissues, and into your internal system, percussion therapy provides multiple benefits to the person. Moreover, this therapy accelerates the repair of muscle fibers by improving the blood flow, and soothing body ache.
You even feel a slight stretching that helps boost your flexibility, physical response, and overall performance.
When percussion therapy with Exogun is compared to traditional massages, hands cannot penetrate and treat the underlying root cause of the body aches. The handheld Exogun can even help reduce stress on joints and bones in no time.
When to Get It?
Since Exogun is quite portable, you can use it anytime you suffer from sore muscles or even a stiff back. It is recommended, however, to use it right before sleeping to help you also sleep better.
Who Should Get It?
The percussion therapy is useful for anyone involved in physical activities. This includes athletes who follow a strict exercise regime and need a quick post-workout recovery. Along with this, it is even useful for anyone who sits for too long and requires a quick massage to relieve tension.
3- Thai Massage
Also called Thai Yoga Massage, it is a traditional therapy that combines acupressure, yoga postures, and Indian Ayurvedic medicinal practices. Even though it is almost thousands of years old, Thai massage is still widely used for its various healing properties.
Thai massage helps to relieve stress and boost your physical energy by unblocking the energy flow through your stiff body. Besides this, it improves oxygen delivery to the tissues, releases endorphins, treats headaches, and increases your motion.
This therapy involves powerful massages along with passive stretching of your muscles. Unlike other massages, it requires you to participate actively and lay down on the floor throughout the therapy.
The practitioner uses all parts of his body, be it elbows, feet, or palm, to apply firm pressure on your tight muscles. As it follows the energy lines of your body, the therapist will move your limbs into different positions and press on other parts of your body.
When to Get It?
You can get a Thai massage whenever you need to relax and feel refreshed. Ideally, a person should start with two appointments per month to improve their flexibility. Later, they can reduce it to once every month.
Who Should Get It?
Since athletes suffer from fatigue and stress, this massage can help to rejuvenate them in no time. By stretching the whole body, it relaxes the athlete and even improves their range of motion.
Besides this, this ancient therapy can be used by any person who suffers from stiff muscles and low energy. However, make sure to check with your health official before making an appointment.
4- Sports Massage
As the name suggests, this massage therapy was developed specifically to help athletes improve their performance. It can help to improve flexibility, prevent injuries, relieve muscle strains, and even aid faster healing.
Designed for soft tissue injuries, the technique involves applying different degrees of pressure with your hands, forearms, elbows, knees, or even your feet. Sports massage includes methods to deal with musculoskeletal pain and injuries by kneading the muscles and manipulating the joints.
There are several techniques to massage sore muscles. One of them uses rhythmical stroking movements that are paired with hand gliding to increase the blood circulation and relax the tight fibers.
Another technique includes grasping and squeezing the affected muscles to stretch and help in lymphatic flow. Furthermore, the last method prepares the athlete for activity by using cupping and hacking motions.
When to Get It?
This therapy can be done either an hour before a game, in-between the game during rest, or after the game to help athletes recover faster after cooling down.
Who Should Get It?
Any athlete with a sports injury, without the presence of ruptured muscles, broken bones, or open wounds, can take advantage of this therapy. Besides this, athletes can use it to recover back from an injury or improve their performance.
In a few cases, people with chronic pain can also take advantage of Sports massage therapy.
5- Reflexology
It is an ancient Chinese practice where therapists target the reflex centers in the feet, hands, and ears. Also called zone therapy, it involves applying pressure on specific points with your thumb, fingers, and hands without using lotion or oil.
Since these reflex areas are connected to different organs and body parts, this massage therapy helps to relax your CNS, improve energy, remove toxins, increase endorphins, and boost your metabolism.
Thus, this massage has an overall soothing result by giving you a calm mental outlook and reducing stress from your body. The massaging pressure points can even reduce pain in your body by relaxing your brain.
Apart from all of the above, this technique improves our well-being, boosts the immune system, clears up sinus issues, improves digestion, lifts mood, and reduces anxiety. Moreover, it can even treat numbness and help recover from backache.
When to Get It?
It is advised to get reflexology once a week from a trained therapist for the first six weeks. Later, you can schedule an appointment every few weeks.
Who Should Get It?
Since it is a gentle massage, anyone can take this therapy to improve their overall health of the body, be it athletes, mothers, or all-night workers.
What Are the Benefits of Post-Workout Massages?
As discussed in the above section, massages offer a lot of post-works benefits. If you want to boost your sports performance and exercise better, a simple massage can make all the difference.
We have listed a few benefits below to convince you about the magic of massage therapy.
- According to research, post-workout massages improve recovery by increasing fiber regeneration and reducing fibrosis after injuries.
- Since massage boosts lymphatic drainage, they help to reduce post-workout inflammation and swelling.
- Massage therapy can provide you with more energy by improving oxygen delivery to the muscles.
- By relieving muscle and joint stiffness, massage therapy can help you prevent injuries and maintain your flexibility.
- Specific massages can help reduce pain by decreasing inflammation and improving blood flow to the muscles.
Conclusion
Although people understand that massage therapies have a lot of benefits, most of them fail to incorporate it into their daily workout schedules. A post-workout can help you recover faster and perform much better the next day.
Besides this, it will improve endurance and boost your overall health too.