Sports Massage in Dubai

For decades, massage therapy is used by health care professionals to treat various illnesses and injuries. It has been endorsed as a preferred treatment option for several conditions, such as muscle injury, relaxation, stress, and pregnancy. Typically, hands, elbows, fingers, or devices are used to provide massage. The person who is professionally qualified and trained to give a massage is known as the massage therapist.

When it comes to sports, it is one of the most popular choices of coaches, athletes, and sports therapists. For athletes, it plays a prominent role in strengthening physical fitness, recovering from exercise and competition, and in the treatment of musculoskeletal injuries.

Sports massage therapy is gaining huge popularity in Dubai. With more people focusing on an active lifestyle, sports massage is widely accepted.

What is sports massage?

Sports massage is a type of massage that involves the stimulation of soft tissue for the advantage of a person engaged in daily physical activity. Soft tissues are the tissues that support, connect, or cover other tissues and body organs. It includes tendons, muscles, ligaments, fibrous tissue, and membranes.

Sports massage uses a number of techniques to support athletes in training – before, during, or after activities. It is mainly used to encourage flexibility and prevent injuries. It also assists with musculoskeletal injuries and helps to recover faster. Since the method involves various techniques, sports massage differs from a spa and other traditional massages.

Benefits of sports massage

After rigorous training & workout sessions, muscles become sore and begin to form knots. It also results in the tightening of tissues. Merely by stretching, this tightness in the tissues does not get released. Sports massage is recommended to ease away such symptoms. The objective of all sports massage is to optimize athletic performance.

It has both psychological and physiological benefits. Some of the main benefits of sports massage are mentioned below:

• Increased range of motion (ROM)
• Increased blood flow
• Increased flexibility
• Decreased chance of injury
• Increased sense of well-being
• Decreased muscle soreness
• Decreased recovery time
• Better sleep
• Increased performance

What are the different forms of sports massage?

There are four basic forms of sports massage – pre-event, post-event, maintenance, and rehabilitation massage. Each form of massage has its own advantages and uses different techniques.

Pre-event massage

Pre-event sports massage is provided to avoid possible severe athletic injuries. It softens the muscles, stretches them, and makes them flexible for optimum athletic performance. This type of massage promotes the flow of nutrients and blood to the muscles, decreases muscle tension, relaxes muscles, and creates a sense of psychological readiness in athletes.

Post-event massage

When an athlete exercises excessively, his/her muscles suffer from microtrauma. A minimal amount of swelling occurs in the muscle due to small tears. In such cases, post-event sports massage helps minimize the swelling caused due to micro trauma. It also loosens sore and rigid muscles, preserves flexibility, encourages blood flow, and prevents cramping. Also, such massage helps accelerate the healing time of the athlete and reduces strain and soreness.

Maintenance massage

As part of regular athletic activity, maintenance sports massage is provided at least once a week. However, the athletes who have their own therapists can have the massage more frequently. Such massage increases the supply of nutrients and blood to the muscles and maintains the tissues lose so that various layers of muscles can easily slip over each other. It also minimizes the growth of scar tissue while increasing the flexibility and range of the athlete.

Rehabilitation massage

It is also known as medical massage. This type of massage operates on specific areas of your body as per the diagnosis. It is meant to treat a particular condition. The practitioners are trained to assist you with sports injury and dysfunction. Such a form of massage therapy is given to improve the health and well-being of the person.

The aim of rehabilitation massage is to establish opportunities for the body to resume normal health after injury.

What is deep tissue massage?

It is a massage technique that is primarily used to treat musculoskeletal conditions, including strains and sports injuries. It mainly applies consistent pressure through slow and deep motions to the connective tissues and inner layers of your muscles. This process breaks the scar tissue and decreases muscle and tissue stress. It also increases the blood flow and reduces inflammation resulting in faster healing.

Unlike other methods, deep tissue massage helps improve stiffness and treats muscle pain. This form of massage is ideally suited for those who have a high level of physical activity, or those with injuries or chronic pain.

What is soft tissue massage?

This technique is less invasive than deep tissue massage. Soft tissue massage emphasizes on working with a variety of depths and pressures.

Soft tissues include all levels of muscle, ligaments, tendons, skin, nerves, fibrous tissues, and blood vessels. This form of massage is manual therapy and is used to treat several soft tissue injuries. Your therapist might use various techniques while giving you this type of massage. He/she may apply mild pressure and stretch the affected area. In some cases, ergonomically designed tools may also be used for the treatment.

This method helps to relax tense muscles, reduce scar tissue, and improves blood circulation.

Who can benefit from sports massage?

Sports massage is recommended for people or sportspersons who train and practice daily for more than 2-3 hours. It is suitable for any sportsperson who needs to stay physically fit.

It is also suitable for anyone who exercises to gain more flexibility and to prevent injuries. It is also a great method to help heal sports injuries faster.

Sports massage techniques

Various techniques are used in treatment while providing sports massage.

Effleurage

Effleurage is performed with gentle pressure, commonly used to start a massage procedure. It is done on several areas of the body with fingers and flat palms. This is a popular technique used in therapeutic massages. It can be performed at a slow rate to minimize tension and stress, and to stimulate relaxation.

Effleurage is a helpful approach that improves healing in the body. It enhances the blood supply and eliminates waste products. This technique improves circulation across the body by applying upwards strokes to the heart. Some of the common areas of the body where this technique is applied are the back, arm, calf, and thigh.

Petrissage

After effleurage, petrissage is potentially the second most common technique for massage. It involves a number of movements, including raising, squeezing, and compressing with hands in a harmonic manner. It can be done more widely with the entire hand or in a more focused way with the fingers.

In this technique, the therapist distinguishes tissues from structures to release and expand muscle fibres. After the regular warming of the tissue by effleurage method, the therapist may continue with petrissage to relax and stretch the muscles. This technique may also add fresh nutrients to the respective area through the blood. There are certain variations of petrissage including kneading, rolling, picking, and wringing.

Effleurage and petrissage are two robust techniques that constitute the backbone of most of the massage therapies. They can be used to provide a full massage experience to a person.

Why 7DMC?

7 Dimensions Medical Centre (7DMC) offers effective sports massage therapy in Dubai. We have certified specialists in sports injuries and posture pain. We offer extensive therapies that are designed to treat a variety of sports injuries. These therapies are structured in a way that they not only cure the damaged area quickly but also boost the recovery time, resulting in more strength and flexibility.

Our sports medicine doctors will diagnose the type of musculoskeletal injury you have sustained, reduce any discomfort or swelling, and formulate a rehabilitation plan as per your requirement. We will work with you to find the most suitable treatment that can improve your injury and speed up your recovery.

We follow the spirit of excellence and highest care while spending time evaluating your case, the seriousness of your injury, and showing you exercises to help you get back on your feet.

Conclusion

Sports massage is one of the most popular techniques to heal certain sports injuries, especially muscle injuries. However, it is important to seek guidance from a trained sports therapist or a specialist in sports medicine before taking any massage. Some ligament and joint conditions that involve immobilization and specialist attention can be exacerbated by massage.

Sports massage has become a well-established and accepted technique. When used appropriately, it results in increased blood flow and ideal athletic performance. It is a safe and highly effective method to treat certain ailments. 

References:

https://www.sportstherapyuk.com/about-sports-massage/what-is-sports-massage

velocity-pt.co.uk/blog/sports-massage-contexts/

https://www.encyclopedia.com/medicine/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/sports-massage

integrativehealthcare.org/mt/pre-and-post-event-sports-massage/

https://www.healthline.com/health/deep-tissue-massage