Sports massage is a form of bodywork geared towards participants in athletics and competitive sports. It is used to help prevent injuries, to prepare the body for athletic activity and maintain it in optimal condition, and to help athletes recover from workouts and injuries. Rolfing helps to create new and sustainable repetitive movement patterns by changing the inefficient structural differential that can help prevent, reduce, and even reverse injuries. Sports massage has three basic forms: pre-event massage, post-event massage, and maintenance massage.
As a formal practice, however, sports massage began in the Soviet Union and Communist bloc countries in the 1960s. Soviet teams were the first to have a massage therapist travel with them and work on their athletes on a regular and ongoing basis. Through sports and cultural exchanges, the concept of sports massage moved to Europe and the United States in the 1970s. Over time the benefits of sports massage became accepted, and sports massage became a part of the training regimen, first of professional athletes, then of college and amateur athletes. Certified Rolfing was first discovered as a modality in America in the 1920’s by Dr. Ida P. Rolf, a biochemist for the Rockefeller Institute, as an alternative to Osteopathic connective tissue adjustments.
Pre-event sports massage is done to help prevent serious athletic injury. It helps to warm up the muscles, stretching them and making them flexible for optimal athletic performance. A pre-event massage stimulates the flow of blood and nutrients to the muscles, reduces muscle tension, loosens the muscles, and produces a feeling of psychological readiness. Rolfing can provide a dramatic shift in structural alignment after the first session enabling an athlete or competitor to function at a much higher integrative potential, spaciousness and vitality than previously held.
Whenever athletes exercise heavily, their muscles suffer micro traumas and small amounts of swelling occur in the muscle because of tiny tears. Post-event sports massage helps reduce the swelling caused by micro traumas; loosens tired, stiff muscles; helps maintain flexibility; promotes blood flow to the muscle to remove lactic acid and waste build-up; and reduces cramping. In addition, post-event massage helps speed the athlete’s recovery time and alleviates pulls, strains, and soreness. Likewise Rolfing helps reduce micro traumas, inflammation and lactic acid by reducing the amount of friction and compression on the entire structure and in the joint capsules and bursa by improving what Dr Rolf identified as ‘body geometry”.
Maintenance sports massage is done at least once a week as a regular part of athletic training programs, although professional athletes who have their own massage therapists may have maintenance massage daily. Rolfing can be received weekly during the series and post series or monthly for maintenance. Rolfing and maintenance massage increases the flow of blood and nutrients to the muscles and connective tissue. Rolfing also keeps the connective tissues loose so that different layers of fascia slide easily over each other. Rolfing and maintenance sports massage also helps reduce the development of scar tissue while increasing flexibility and range of motion.
The goal of all sports massage is to maximize athletic performance. Athletes in different sports will concentrate the massage on different parts of the body. Certified Rolfing has been widely accepted by the NFL, NHL, NBA, and MLB. Numerous university athletic departments have a Certified Rolfer on payroll or staff and the US Olympics recognize Certified Rolfing as instrumental in the athletic performance of our teams.
John Barton, Certified Rolfer® and Rolfing® Kalispell/Whitefish, Montana
www.certifiedrolfing.com/Kalispell
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