A Queen’s University research team has blown open the myth that massage after exercise improves circulation to the muscle and assists in the removal of lactic acid and other waste products.
“This dispels a common belief in the general public about the way in which massage is beneficial,” says Kinesiology and Health Studies professor Michael Tschakovsky. “It also dispels that belief among people in the physical therapy profession. All the physical therapy professionals that I have talked to, when asked what massage does, answer that it improves muscle blood flow and helps get rid of lactic acid. Ours is the first study to challenge this and rigorously test its validity.”
The belief that massage aids in the removal of lactic acid from muscle tissue is so pervasive it is even listed on the Canadian Sports Massage Therapists website as one of the benefits of massage, despite there being absolutely no scientific research to back this up.
Kinesiology MSc candidate Vicky Wiltshire and Dr. Tschakovsky set out to discover if this untested hypothesis was true, and their results show that massage actually impairs blood flow to the muscle after exercise, and that it therefore also impairs the removal of lactic acid from muscle after exercise.
Hi Michael:
Your research on message after exercise helps me answering the most popular question asked by many runners, doctors and students in Kinesiology. I have for many years doubting this practices, message after exercise help runner recovery.
Hope you can continue to explore more evidence to clear the myth.
Michael Liang
Cal Poly Pomona, California
The art of massage as a therapeutic practice is as old as civilization and I consider it to be a form of alternative medicine (although it is not incompatible with modern Western medical practices). After a hard day there is no better way to relax then a long and soothing massage. In my view, the best style is the traditional