Massage Won’t Rub Away Post-Exercise Woes
A post-exercise rubdown might be relaxing, but don’t count on it to speed relief to weary muscles.
Massage is less effective than a post-exercise cooldown in dispersing lactate, a waste product of exercise, a study says.
In fact, massage is no better than doing nothing, says the report in the National Strength and Conditioning Assn.’s Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research.
This may surprise athletes who believe in their post-exercise rubdown, said researcher Forrest A. Dolgener, director of the Human Performance Laboratory at the University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls.
The “burn” felt by exercise can be blamed on lactate, which results from the breakdown of the glucose that exercising muscles use for fuel. When it builds up in the muscles, it reduces performance.
Lactate is carried away in the blood -- and the faster, the better, because this could help athletes recover for their next event. Dolgener’s study investigated whether massage could speed the process.
Dolgener looked at 22 healthy male volunteer recreational runners who covered 10-70 miles a week in the previous year.
The researchers had the men push up their lactate levels by running on a treadmill set to such a hard workout that they would be worn out in 4-6 minutes.
Afterward, seven were allowed to lie down and rest, another seven rode a stationary bicycle set for a post-exercise cooldown at moderate intensity, and eight had their legs massaged by a certified massage therapist.
The researchers took blood samples after three minutes from alL groups, found no significant differences, and used this as a baseline for comparison with lactate levels 20 minutes after exercise.
The later measurements showed no significant difference between resting and massage. The resters dropped their lactate by 22%, while the massaged group’s lactate fell 26%. In contrast, the bikers’ lactate sank 55%, which was significant, the report said.
Athletes who believe massage increases blood flow so metabolic wastes are carried off may wonder why this study didn’t prove them right.
Dolgener didn’t measure blood flow, so he has no data to answer them. He suggested that, if massage did increase blood flow, it didn’t do enough. He also speculated that other factors than blood flow may be important in removing lactate.
In either case, Dolgener said, the practical application is that massage won’t rub lactate away.
Another researcher finds the results somewhat surprising.
“I would have thought ... the massage group would have had higher lactate clearance than the passive recovery group,” said Dr. Jack Taunton, codirector of the sports medicine division at the University of British Columbia.
Taunton has a grant from the American Massage Therapy Assn. is starting a similar study on swimmers.
“It would have been interesting to see what blood-flow changes they got with their massage,” Taunton said.
However, massage may have other benefits that would make a rubdown worthwhile, Dolgener said.
It might relieve tension, making an athlete feel more relaxed, Dolgener said: “It feels good, and there is a big relationship between the mental aspect and performance.”
Massage might possibly relieve other metabolic problems, such as the delayed-onset soreness that comes 24-48 hours after exercise, Dolgener said.
“There’s so much anecdotal evidence from athletes who swear by it,” Dolgener said. “In order not to negate that aspect, you can’t say it’s no good.”
The trouble is that U.S. science has little evidence that it works.
Eastern European researchers have said that massage helps to get white blood cells in to repair the muscle microtears that come with exercise, said researcher A. Lynn Millar of Andrews University in Berrien Springs, Mich.
These researchers also say massage helps to drain wastes through the lymph system, Millar said.
The problem is that these scientists don’t document their studies well, which makes them hard to repeat, Millar said: “They refer to studies they’ve done and don’t tell you always how they’ve done it.”
