Effect of massage on blood flow in skeletal muscle
original abstract†Abstracts here may not perfectly match originals, for a variety of technical and practical reasons. Some abstacts are truncated for my purposes here, if they are particularly long-winded and unhelpful. I occasionally add clarifying notes. And I make some minor corrections.
Skeletal muscle blood flow was measured before, during and after short application of different forms of massage using the local 133Xenon washout method for determination of blood flow. During maneouvres with tapotement (hacking) an increase in blood flow comparable to exercise hyperemia was observed, and this increase was ascribed to repetitive contractions. A prolonged hyperemia found after tapotement was ascribed to the traumatic procedure. During and after petrissage (kneading) the tissue perfusion did not change significantly. It is uncertain whether the reported changes in blood flow are related to therapeutic effects of massage, but the squeezing effect of petrissage might be important for lymphatic drainage.
related content
- “The effects of massage on the circulation in normal and paralyzed extremities,” KG Wakim and others, Archives of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, 1949.
These three articles on PainScience.com cite Hovind 1974 as a source:
- PS Does Massage Therapy Work? — A review of the science of massage therapy … such as it is
- PS The Pressure Question in Massage Therapy — What’s the right amount of pressure to apply to muscles in massage therapy and self-massage?
- PS Does Massage Increase Circulation? — Probably not, and definitely not as much as a little exercise
This page is part of the PainScience BIBLIOGRAPHY, which contains plain language summaries of thousands of scientific papers & others sources. It’s like a highly specialized blog. A few highlights:
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- Agreement of self-reported items and clinically assessed nerve root involvement (or sciatica) in a primary care setting. Konstantinou 2012 Eur Spine J.
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- Association of Spinal Manipulative Therapy With Clinical Benefit and Harm for Acute Low Back Pain: Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. Paige 2017 JAMA.