If you have poor posture, it’s likely due to tight muscles and/or a lack of flexibility. Whether it’s “text neck” or rounded shoulders, massage can improve your posture and reduce pain and discomfort.
Regular massage combined with exercise, stretching, and lifestyle changes can lead to permanent postural improvements. Here’s how.
Increased Blood Flow
Postural problems arise from prolonged periods in positions that strain the natural alignment of the body. These stresses can lead to muscle imbalances and joint misalignments that eventually cause pain. Massage can help alleviate these issues by releasing tight muscles and encouraging proper alignment.
Aside from increasing flexibility and reducing muscle fatigue, sports massage has been shown to increase blood flow. In particular, it improves circulation in the muscles by stimulating the release of a neurotransmitter called histamine, which widens the blood vessels and increases vasodilation.
Whether you have "text neck" from constantly looking down at your phone or poor posture due to an office job, massage can help improve your alignment and reduce pain. However, it's important to incorporate lifestyle changes and exercise into your routine to support lasting posture improvements. For athletes, massage enhances performance and accelerates recovery from intense training sessions and competitions. This helps prevent injuries so you can return to your peak performance.
Increased Muscle Temperature
The friction generated between the skin and hand during kneading and manipulation of soft tissue causes an increase in muscle temperature. This helps to reduce tightness, and increases the elasticity of muscle tissues. This is an important factor in increasing flexibility.
The break down and realignment of collagen fibres which occur during a sports massage can also help to improve flexibility. Collagen fibres are thin rods that make up the substance collagen, and they lay in a haphazard way over muscle fibres, reducing flexibility. The rise in temperature during a sports massage breaks down the cross links in collagen, and allows it to soften allowing the muscles to stretch more easily.
Sports massage can also decrease the build-up of lactic acid after intense exercise, which is known to cause pain and stiffness. Studies by Zebrowska et al48, Fazeli et al49 and Guan et al50 have shown that manual massage decreases the level of lactic acid, resulting in less pain and stiffness.
Increased Flexibility
A good posture requires a balance between tight muscles and loose ones. With regular massage, tight muscles can relax and loosen, allowing the joints and bones to align in their natural positions. In addition, weak muscles can be strengthened to improve their balancing act with the strong ones.
This is particularly important when treating poor posture. A good example is a person suffering from scoliosis or kyphosis resulting from poor sitting habits, unsupportive shoes, being overweight or physically inactive.
The muscle imbalance can be addressed with remedial massage techniques such as trigger point therapy. It is a deep tissue massage style with varied pressure applied to the areas containing soft tissues and muscles. This stimulates an improvement in blood flow, increases muscle and joint flexibility and elasticity thereby enabling the body to move with greater ease in its natural posture. This also helps to reduce the discomfort that is often associated with a postural defect.
Increased Relaxation
The squeezing and release action of massage techniques on muscles and connective tissues increases circulation and helps remove waste products. It also improves tissue elasticity and extensibility. Techniques such as wringing (a circular motion with alternate squeezing and releasing of hands over the area) stretch tight fascia and muscle fibres, improving flexibility.
Studies have shown diy sports massage techniques that sports massage reduces performance anxiety, allowing the athlete to concentrate on their task. It also increases sleep quality and enhances the immune system.
Incorporating maintenance massage into a training regimen helps maintain muscle health and prevent injuries. Regular sessions detect and correct imbalances, reducing tension and tightness and increasing flexibility, which promotes balanced movement of the limbs and minimizes injury risk.
Athletes who incorporate regular massage into their training programs should choose a professional with proper certification and specific knowledge of their sport. This will ensure that the massage is targeted and effective, maximizing its benefits. The therapist can provide recommendations for pre-event massage to warm up muscles, boost circulation and enhance athletic performance, as well as post-event massage that aids in recovery from exercise and competition and the treatment of sports-related musculoskeletal injuries.
