The effect of massage on acceleration and sprint performance in track \& field athletes
Two articles on PainSci cite Moran 2018: 1. Does Massage Therapy Work? 2. Massage Therapy Side Effects
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.
PURPOSE: To examine the acute effects of pre-competition massage on acceleration and sprint performance in collegiate track and field athletes.
METHODS: Seventeen collegiate male (n = 9) and female (N = 8) track and field athletes participated in the study. Athletes were assigned to a counterbalanced, repeated measures designed experiment testing four treatment conditions of a pre-competition massage, dynamic warm-up, combination of a massage and warm-up, and a placebo ultrasound.
RESULTS: The reliability between treatments was very high (ICC range: 0.94-0.98) and displayed a high internal consistency (Cronbach α = 0.96). Inter-item correlations for treatments were strong at all time intervals (20-m r = 0.74-0.90; 30-m r = 0.87-0.95; 60-m r = 0.88-0.95). There were no significant differences between the four treatments and performance (p = 0.70). Massage decreased 60-meter sprint performance in comparison to the traditional warm-up, although the combination of the massage and warm-up appeared to have no greater difference than the warm-up alone.
CONCLUSIONS: Massage prior to competition remains questionable due to a lack of effectiveness in improving sprint performance. Further, pre-competition massage may not be more effective as a pre-event modality, over a traditional warm-up.
related content
- “The effects of precompetition massage on the kinematic parameters of 20-m sprint performance,” Iain M Fletcher, Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, 2010.
- “Effect of pre-performance lower-limb massage on thirty-meter sprint running,” Jon E Goodwin, Mark Glaister, Glyn Howatson, Richard A Lockey, and Gillian McInnes, Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, 2007.
Specifically regarding Moran 2018:
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