I am pretty sure whoever first said a massage was a luxury did not have a full-time job, full-time family, and an exercise routine. I often say that for me, a massage is a necessity to get back to balance again, and stay healthy...and as luck would have it, there is a lot of data that proves my self-discovery! Working out and pushing yourself in the gym, with ample recovery time after, is amazing for your health—except when everything else in life adds up as well, and your tissues and muscles end up sore and tight from overdoing it! Muscle recovery is so important after exercise soreness happens, but how do you speed up the recovery process? Enter massage therapy. Massage is an awesome way to boost recovery after a tough workout! There are lots of massage benefits, especially for recovery and soreness. In this post, we'll talk about:

• How Massages Work to Help Your Muscles
• 5 Massage Benefits You Need to Know About
• How to Massage Yourself at Home (+ the tool you'll want)
• Other Ways to Boost Muscle Recovery

Let's get started!

How Can a Massage Help Your Overall Health?

A massage stimulates blood circulation, which helps bring freshly oxygenated blood to different areas of your body. The blood that's rich with oxygen helps feed tissues and wash away toxic waste in your muscles. After exercise, lactic acid builds up in your muscles and causes soreness, but massage can help stimulate blood flow to reduce that buildup! Massages also can decrease inflammation. Micro-tears in your muscles causes inflammation after substances called cytokines are released into the body. Massages help to stop those chemicals from being released, which decreases inflammation more rapidly. When inflammation is eased, so is pain and soreness! [1]

4 Massage Benefits That Will Improve Your Life

There are so many incredible massage benefits. Today, let's go over four benefits that are specific to stress, muscles, and exercise recovery! If you utilize massage therapy, here are 4 massage benefits you should be as excited about as I am!  

1. Counteracts Bad Posture and Soreness from Sitting All Day

We spend so much time forward-oriented, whether it's looking at screens, cooking, texting, watching TV, or sitting at a desk all day. This leads to lots of stress, tension, and soreness in your neck, shoulders, and back! Massage can counteract the damage from sitting or having poor posture for extended periods of time! Because of constant forward-orientation, I also recommend doing chest opening stretches daily, like placing one hand on each side of a doorway and pushing your chest forward until you feel a great chest stretch and release your back muscles to rest.

2. Relieves Pain

Massage therapy effectively relieves pain and helps you manage both acute and chronic pain. As a holistic way to relieve pain, massage relies on stimulating muscles and washing away lactic acid buildup to relieve inflammation. For athletes who consistently face muscle strain and soreness, massage is an effective alternative to pain medicine. [2]

3. Helps Prevent Future Injuries During Exercise

Physical activity and exercise are so important to your overall health and wellness. For many athletes and people in general, doing more intense exercise helps increase muscle mass outcomes. Unfortunately, doing an intense workout can also end up causing injuries or even just muscle fatigue and soreness. Massage can actually improve consistent athletic performance by reducing soreness and helping to prevent injuries. For example, you're less likely to severely injure a muscle if you consistently relieve inflammation and release lactic acid buildup. Massage has the following incredible benefits for exercise and athletic performance [3]:

• Helps support muscle tone
• Boosts relaxation
• Relieves tension in your muscles
• Increases your range of motion
• Relieves muscle tightness
• Supports muscle recovery
• Decreases Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS)
• Reduces swelling and inflammation
• Helps prevent injuries

4. Boost Muscle Recovery After Intense Workouts

Massage helps boost muscle recovery after intense workouts. Like some of the other benefits we've talked about, this is a powerful perk of massage! Other common treatments for sore muscles, like chemical creams, or oral medicines, reduce inflammation, but can also block muscle repair, growth, and recovery. On the other hand, massage reduces inflammation to help you feel better, all while actually boosting muscle recovery and healing.

How to Massage Yourself at Home (& The Tool You Can't Live Without!)

While it's amazing to get a professional massage, it can be expensive and inconvenient. Luckily, there's another way! Investing in a self-administered tool like the HyperVolt by HyperIce is an awesome way to massage yourself. There are many options on the market, but this tool is one of our absolute favorites. It has lots of different attachment options so that you can massage different parts of your body! You'll be able to reach the majority of your body, so no more relying on your significant other to come home and work out those knots after a hard workout! The HyperVolt is easy to use, super quiet and has a built-in pressure sensor to help you create the most accurate and beneficial massage therapy experience. These devices help you relieve muscle soreness and tension, reduce inflammation, promote circulation, and accelerates both warmup and recovery for workouts!

Other Key Ways to Boost Muscle Recovery

Okay, so now you understand the amazing massage benefits, you know how worthwhile it is to integrate massage into your workout routine to boost muscle recovery! But what other ways are there to boost muscle recovery? Here are some tips.

• Make sure you're staying hydrated before, during, and after your workout—getting enough water and electrolytes is essential to keeping your muscles healthy!
• Rest and take breaks if you're going to be doing a long workout.
• Stretch before and after working out.
• Recover properly! Don't do intense workouts every day! You can't do extreme workouts every single day without taking a huge toll on your body. A better way is to do 1-2 intense workouts per week and rest or do gentler workouts the other days!
• Try out alternative ways of exercising to utilize different muscle groups and movements, like yoga or rebounding!
• Make sure that you're eating a well-balanced diet and getting all of the nutrients you need, especially magnesium and calcium.
• Get enough Vitamin D to support bone health and muscle recovery!

Massage is an absolutely amazing way to boost muscle recovery and help prevent future injuries. It corrects muscle strain, muscle tension, and even the effects of stress or poor posture! There are so many incredible massage benefits for your overall health, but especially for muscle recovery. Have you ever tried massage for your muscles after working out? If you're ready to invest in an impactful tool like the HyperVolt, it'll revolutionize the way you deal with pain and recovery after workouts! Send us a message to order yours today!

Sources

[1] Baum, I. (2019). Is It OK to Get a Massage If You're ~Really~ Sore? Shape. Retrieved August 3, 2020, from https://www.shape.com/lifestyle/mind-and-body/should-you-get-massage-with-severe-muscle-soreness[2] massage and pain relief. (2020). American Massage Therapy Association. Retrieved August 3, 2020, from https://www.amtamassage.org/resources/massage-and-health/pain-relief/[3] Massage therapy for those who exercise. (2020). American Massage Therapy Association. Retrieved August 3, 2020, from https://www.amtamassage.org/about/position-statements/massage-therapy-for-those-who-exercise/