Manual massage and recovery of muscle function following exercise: a literature review
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.
There is currently little scientific evidence that manual massage has any significant impact on the short- or long-term recovery of muscle function following exercise or on the physiological factors associated with the recovery process. In addition, delayed onset muscle soreness may not be affected by massage. Light exercise of the affected muscles is probably more effective than massage in improving muscle blood flow (thereby possibly enhancing healing) and temporarily reducing delayed onset muscle soreness. This paper reviews current scientific evidence on the use of manual massage to affect: 1) muscle damage caused by eccentric muscle action; 2) retention and recovery of muscle strength and performance following "eccentric-mechanical" muscle damage; 3) reduction of delayed onset muscle soreness following "eccentric-mechanical" muscle damage; and 4) recovery of muscle strength and performance following anaerobic exercise. Because manual massage does not appear to have a demonstrated effect on the above, its use in athletic settings for these purposes should be questioned.
related content
These two articles on PainScience.com cite Tiidus 1997 as a source:
- PS Quite a Stretch — Stretching science has shown that this extremely popular form of exercise has almost no measurable benefits
- PS Post-Exercise, Delayed-Onset Muscle Soreness — The biology & treatment of “muscle fever,” the deep muscle soreness that surges 24-48 hours after an unfamiliar workout intensity
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:
- A Bayesian model-averaged meta-analysis of the power pose effect with informed and default priors: the case of felt power. Gronau 2017 Comprehensive Results in Social Psychology.
- Association of Spinal Manipulative Therapy With Clinical Benefit and Harm for Acute Low Back Pain: Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. Paige 2017 JAMA.
- Incidence of Spontaneous Resorption of Lumbar Disc Herniation: A Meta-Analysis. Zhong 2017 Pain Physician.
- How much is too much? (Part 1) International Olympic Committee consensus statement on load in sport and risk of injury. Soligard 2016 Br J Sports Med.
- Chiropractic spinal manipulative therapy for migraine: a three-armed, single-blinded, placebo, randomized controlled trial. Chaibi 2016 Eur J Neurol.