The muscle rub - does massage work?
SPORTS massage is a favourite therapy of exercisers looking to ease tired limbs. Proponents claim it speeds up recovery by increasing blood flow to enhance the removal of lactic acid. But a new study in the journal Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise found the opposite to be true, suggesting post-exercise massage impairs recovery rather than improves it. Professor Michael Tschakovsky, from the School of Kinesiology and Health Studies at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, recruited 12 healthy young men and asked them to them exercise their forearm muscle to exhaustion by squeezing a specialized handgrip at 40 percent of maximum force for two minutes without rest. Afterwards, massage did not increase blood flow to the tired muscle as expected, but reduced it. In fact, every massage stroke seemed to cut off blood flow to the forearm muscle. Overall, less blood reached the massaged muscle, compared with the amount that flowed to the forearm when participants did 10 minutes of active recovery exercises.
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