Self-Massage for Fitness Professionals

by Rich Poley©

If you’re reading this you probably need a massage. Or maybe you have a client or student who does. Most people aren’t aware of their need for massage but you are. As a fitness professional, you’re attuned to your body’s needs. You work with the bodies of clients and students, you observe them, evaluate them, and train them. You understand, better than most people, the regenerative and therapeutic powers of massage. But if going to a massage therapist every time a muscle tightens up is not an option; you might try self-massage.

Self-Massage Therapy

Self-Massage can improve your health, mood, and athletic performance. It’s handy, easy to learn, and you can’t beat the price. As a fitness professional, self-massage may even improve job performance, and it’s something you can teach your students and clients to help them feel better, and train more effectively.

Everyone uses self-massage to some extent. You’ve probably used it yourself to relieve a stiff muscle, work a kink out of your shoulder, or rub your feet after a hard day. Most athletes use it unconsciously, and often ineffectively. To get the most from self-massage you should use it with intent and effect by adopting some of the same techniques professional massage therapists use. All massage is therapy if performed properly.

Athletic Benefits

In addition to relieving muscle pain and soreness, self-massage therapy provides athletes with a plethora of benefits. It speeds recovery between exercise, and reduces the likelihood of injury. It improves circulation and warms muscles making them more fluid. Most of the performance enhancing affects of massage are obvious. That’s why athletes have used massage for thousands of years, since before the first Olympic Games in ancient Greece.

Improved Health

Not all benefits of self-massage are self evident. Recently, researchers discovered a host of health related benefits associated with massage. Clinical tests show that when massage is received at least twice a week for thirty minutes it strengthens the immune system1. It’s also been shown to reduce stress, anxiety, and depression.2 Stress not only effects mood but is a major cause of illness and injury. Massage, therefore, does double duty to improve health by strengthening your resistance to illness and reducing a cause of disease and injury. Of course, if your health and mood improve, you will be able to train more effectively and your athletic performance will benefit.

Stimulating and Relaxing

Massage has the ability to both energize and relax depending upon the stroke you choose. In that sense, it is like music for your body. Just as you would use gentle music while teaching yoga to relax your students, you would use gentle massage strokes to relax your body. However, if you were teaching a spin or kick boxing class you’d play more intense music at a higher volume to energize your students. Likewise, if the goal of your massage were to invigorate, your strokes would be intense and energizing.

Self-Massage and Professional Massage

Self-massage is not a replacement for professional massage therapy. The two are not mutually exclusive. Each has advantages and disadvantages. Self-massage provides almost perfect feedback. While a professional massage therapist can only guess how each stroke feels to you, with self-massage you get immediate feedback. Self-massage is convenient, it teaches you about yourself, and it’s empowering. On the other hand, assisted massage can be much more relaxing than self-massage. Professional massage therapists can go deeper and can better treat injuries because of their training and experience.

For You and Your Students

Use self-massage regularly to ease sore muscles, improve your health, mood and athletic performance. After you’ve learned first hand, how effective self-massage can be, feel free to teach it to your students and clients when they have a sore muscle or a hard workout.

Learning It

Self-massage therapy is easy to learn because it’s practically instinctive. There are only a few technical strokes to master, which, actually, aren’t all that technical. They include gliding, squeezing, squeezing and rolling, pressing, pressing and rolling, and drumming. Once you’ve learned these strokes, it’s just a matter of combining them and varying their intensity to suit your immediate needs.

Let’s try a few strokes. Glide your hand over your legs a few times. Vary the speed, pressure, and location of each glide. Next, press a few fingers into different locations on your shoulder with varying intensity. Then try squeezing your triceps. Slightly vary the intensities and location of each squeeze. Close your eyes and feel into each stroke. If you can perform these basic strokes and they make sense to you, learning effective self-massage will be easy.

REFERENCES           

1. Field, Tiffany. Touch Therapy. Edinburgh: Churchill Livingstone, (2000) 171-219.

2. Shulman and Jones, “The Effectiveness of Massage Therapy on Reducing Anxiety in the Workplace,” The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, Vol. 32, No. 2, 160-173 (1996); Field et al., “Massage and Relaxation Therapies’ Effects on Depressed Adolescent Mothers,” Adolescence 31 (124): 903–911; Leivadi et al., “Therapy and Relaxation Effects on University Dance Students,” Journal of Dance Medicine & Science, 3, 108-112; and Field, Touch Therapy, 145–150, 219.

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