Veronica: Hi! I'm Veronica with watchmojo.com and today we're with the massage therapist from X-Fit to learn more about how massage can help your training. So if you're an athlete, is it beneficial to get a massage?
Eric Saulnier: Well, it can increase the blood flow and circulation. It can break down muscle spasm, so if there is an pain or tension it can try to break down those problems, as well it can help with the recovery and sleeping habits. So you will be ready to do a better workout the next day.
Maxim Smirnov: Also, if your therapist knows anatomy well, he can use it to better your posture, work more the tight muscles and know where it's weak and where it needs to be strengthened.
Eric Saulnier: One of the things we can do for a therapeutic massage is called the interosseous release. So there is two bones in your shin, it's Tibia and Fibula and between the two there is a nerve, artery and vein that run through that.
So to help with the circulation, we're going to try to do a little bit of uncorking. So I'm going to try to put a little pressure here and we are also bring these two bones apart a little bit. So this can help with circulation of course, from your ankle, which you have a swollen ankle or something like that would help decrease the swelling. Also it can help with things like shin splints and relaxing the muscles in shin.
Veronica: What's the difference between getting massage before a workout and afterwards?
Eric Saulnier: Before game, you would want to have something a little bit more vigorous and try to increase blood flow and get ready for the game, whereas after the game you probably want something little bit more relaxing that can help with recovery.
Okay, we're going to go from the back also and try to splay the two bones from the back and work down the calf. So once we've done the uncorking we are then going to do effleurage and try to return some of this circulation back to the heart.
Veronica: Can you still get massage if you are injured?
Maxim Smirnov: Basic injuries, strain or sprain, you always want to increase the blood flow to that place to take out the swelling, so that usually helps.
Eric Saulnier: It's good to talk with the therapist as they are doing massage. So if you feel something that's little too firm, say, that's too hard and if you feel that's little too soft, you can say, oh, you can go a little harder.
Maxim Smirnov: So here is upper trapezius that they tend to be tight muscles. When you sit a lot of in front of computer that's where you tend to get a lot of tightness. So here I am applying a little bit pressure just sort of release it. If there would be something with around the scapula, which you can see here. You can just go in it and sort of work all those little muscles, little scapular stabilizers, just sort of digging there.
Transcription by:
Scribe4you Transcription Services