It does not matter what sport or activity you are involved in or how good in a shape you are, there are going to be times where you are going to suffer an injury. If you consider it for a moment, even the most highly trained and well conditioned athletes suffer injuries at some point or another, some of them rather severe.
Oddly enough, some even suffer injuries from very odd kinds of circumstances. For example, baseball great Sammy Sosa once pulled the rib cage muscle sneezing. A former Colorado Rockies baseball player was injured when he tripped over a grocery bag he was carrying up the stairs to his apartment, and former New York Jets quarterback Vinny Testaverde once blew out the tendon in the back of his ankle simply by stepping on his foot while backpedaling. It’s amazing how quickly or easily you can be hurt.
Massage Therapy Can Help in Your Recovery
You hear a lot about the fantastic medical breakthroughs that have been generated to assist people in their recovery. It doesn’t seem like it was very long ago where a person who blew out the ligaments in their knee would be out of the game for at least two years if not forced to retire. Now a player can be back on the field in less than a year’s period of time. It truly is remarkable how sports science has changed.
One such area is in the use of massage therapy. Massages have always been offered to athletes, but usually were nothing more than a rubdown after performing in their sport. Now, they have become far more sophisticated, making it so that they can actually be one of the most beneficial parts about a person’s rehab.
How Massage Therapy Can Help
If you have had a prolonged rehabilitation from an injury, even one such as a broken bone or torn ligaments, you have likely had some kind of massage therapy as part of the treatment if not, that was a real shame.
However, there are those who have had injuries that may not have been as severe who did not take advantage of this kind of treatment. Some may be suffering right now, and you should know the benefits of how massage therapy can assist you in increasing the rate of your recovery.
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Increasing Circulation
One of the most essential parts of any rehabilitation is allowing the body to use his own natural means to bring about healing. While you may have had to have surgery to repair tendons or ligaments, suture a severely torn area of cartilage, or had a pin inserted to assist a bone in his healing, the truth remains that your body still does an enormous amount of the healing on its own.
Blood brings many of the nutrients and hormones that are necessary to assist in the healing process, and going to massage therapist can help that flow of blood to more easily circulate to the area so that healing can occur at a much more rapid pace. In fact, it really does not matter what kind of injury you have suffered, you will find that massage therapy will aid in circulation to the point that the rehabilitation period can be reduced by as much as 25 percent simply by increasing blood flow.
Improves Range of Motion
One of the most common occurrences for a person who has suffered an injury is that the range of motion in the joint will decrease. It doesn’t matter how severe the injury was, you will likely find that the person has psychologically created a greater amount of tension out of concern of what could happen to them again or that they simply have not stretched the muscle out enough so they have reduced their range.
The perfect massage therapist will assist you in regaining that range of motion, and will actually be able to help you to increase that to some degree. The more comfortable you get with the therapist and the manner in which they have helped you, the more relaxed you will feel during the therapy which can actually lead to greater strength and range within the muscles and joints.
Prevents Further Injuries
One of the best benefits of visiting a massage therapist is that they can have a tremendous impact on preventing future injuries. By helping your muscles, joints, and other areas of your body to be more relaxed and more enriched by the nutrients provided by the circulatory system, the potential for future injury is decreased significantly. This is why the vast majority of professional sports teams offer massage therapy before athletes participate in events or even practice each day.
It is easy to see that there are enormous benefits out of seeing a massage therapist as part of your fitness training. The best part is that only a few of those benefits were covered here, meaning that you should find an even larger number of reasons to see one of these therapists.
AUTHOR BIO
Alycia Gordan is a freelance writer who loves to read and write articles on healthcare technology, fitness and lifestyle. She is a tech junkie and divides her time between travel and writing. You can find her on Twitter: @meetalycia
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