For many years now, massage has been an important part of the toolkit athletes rely on to recover faster and perform better.

Massage can do this by:

• Reducing muscular tension
• Reducing immediate muscle soreness
• Helping to prevent delayed onset muscle soreness
• Helping to prevent injury
• Promoting a state of relaxation
• Relieving increased muscle tone

When is massage most effective?

If you decide to have a massage pretty soon after the event (up to 24 hours), the most useful massage is on the lighter side, such as a Swedish massage. This type of massage helps to calm your nervous system after an intense workout, and helps to kickstart the recovery process.

After the 24 hour mark, a deep tissue massage is usually better, and it can help reduce the effects of delayed onset muscle soreness.

Treating Injuries

Athletes are obviously at a bigger risk of injury due to overuse. Massage therapy is a great way to speed up the recovery of injuries. By manipulating the tissue in the injured area, massage therapy fulfills two important functions:

• It increases circulation to that area, which promotes faster healing
• It can break up old scar tissue, giving athletes better mobility and resolving chronic problems with old injuries

If you’re an athlete and you’ve never tried out massage therapy as a way to speed up recovery from your workouts, you really owe it to yourself to give it a try.

The new Myobuddy Massager Pro and Pro+ feature adjustable strength levels, and unlike other personal massages, have no hard nobs. Instead, a vibrating, oscillating padded disk with three layers of foam and a plush microfiber bonnet delivers optimum levels of vibration, percussion, and frictional heat to help you recover faster and perform better!