There’s nothing like a good massage. The hands-on, effortless rub-down that manipulates your muscles and soft body tissues, taking the aches, pains and stresses of everyday life and melting them away has become not only big business in the health and alternative medicine industries, but a staple in many athlete’s lives. Massage is an ancient practice with over 80 different styles including the famed Swedish and Shiatsu massage techniques. What kind of massage is best for you is dependent on your condition and your de-stressing needs. The health benefits include stress management and pain control.
> Types of Massage
Swedish Massage
Increasing the oxygen in your blood flow and releasing muscle toxins are the goals of Swedish massage. Its long, fluid strokes relax muscles by applying pressure against deeper muscles and bones in the same direction of your heart venous return, toxin release and stress management.
Deep Tissue Massage
Very similar to Swedish massage, deep tissue massage targets knots in your muscles to relieve chronic tension, reduce inflammation and eliminate scar tissue. It focuses on deep muscle tissue and tendons. Swedish massage works with the grain of your muscles, deep tissue massage works across the grain. It usually takes a day or two before relief is felt due to the pain caused by the deeper massage.
Sports Massage
The type of “loosening up” massage depends on the sport and the area of pain. It is used just as much as part of a training program as a pain management technique.
Hot Stone Massage
Basalt stones retain heat and cold well making them perfect for stone massage therapy. A relatively new therapy, hot stone massage improves metabolism and promotes muscle and nerve relaxation through heat therapy.
Chair Massage
These “quickie” massages are often used in corporate wellness programs. Massage chairs remain onsite or therapists can bring them to health and sports related events to provide on the spot massages to alleviate everyday aches and pains that come from sitting at a computer to playing a golf tournament.
Aromatherapy Massage
Aromatherapy massage is a popular wellness treatment that you can often do at home. Through gentle massage with fragrant oils, aromatherapy eases stress through smell and massage.
Shiatsu Massage
Japan is noted for its holistic approach to wellness. Shiatsu massage uses acupressure applied with the thumbs, hands, elbows and knees to directly affect the meridians of the body to unlock pain and to promote relaxation.
Cranial Sacral Massage
Non-invasive and gentle, cranial sacral massage is considered an alternative form of medicine and the massage therapists are called cranial sacral therapists. Therapists ease nerve restrictions in the skull and spine by manipulating the movement of fluid and often restoring misaligned bones relieving such ailments as stress, TMJ, back, neck and migraine pain.
Thai Massage
Performed on a mat, Thai massage’s deep rhythmic pressure couples with assisted yoga to revitalize energy by clearing negative energy or qi from the body. Thai massage is an alternative to deep tissue massage. It is tolerated well by pregnant women, those suffering from chronic pain or who have been seriously hurt, since the massage is passive and the patient remains fully clothed in loose clothing.
Reflexology massage
Focusing on target zones within the hands and feet, reflexology massage returns your body to its proper equilibrium by telling the brain to reduce stress to specific organs in your body.
