OBJECTIVES: Massage is widely used by the athletic population for a variety of purposes such as injury prevention, recovery from fatigue, relaxation, and to increase performance. This paper reviews the scientific literature on the use and effects of massage therapy in sport. Specifically, the review addresses physiological, psychological and performance effects. METHOD: A literature search was conducted using Medline, Psychlit and SPORTDiscus databases. In addition, the author's own files were considered. RESULTS: Past studies on blood flow, blood lactate removal and delayed onset of muscle soreness are seen to have produced equivocal results, with blood lactate removal following exercise more efficiently removed through active recovery strategies rather than through massage. Studies on the psychological effects are few in number, however recent research seems to demonstrate massage having positive effects on perceptions of recovery. Few studies exist which assess massage effects on performance, and current findings appear to show little support for the use of massage for performance enhancement. CONCLUSIONS: Massage research has been affected by a lack of comparable instrumentation and different research designs that make interpretation and extrapolation of results difficult. It appears the use of massage may largely be based upon anecdotal accounts that convey positive testaments about this form of therapy. The evidence from this review suggests that more scientific research on the effects of massage needs to be undertaken to clarify the precise effects of massage for athletes, however applying scientific principles to the study of massage does pose methodological challenges for the researcher.

Full text (sometimes free) may be available at these link(s):      help

• PDF locator
• publisher