30/10/2025
Here's a post from a well respected Massage Therapist/Stretching & Mobility practitioner and teacher.If you're spending time in the gym or on the training and competing in sport, it's relevant to you
HOW CAN MASSAGE HELP YOUR TRAINING LOAD?
Massage can be useful when you’re managing training load, heavy sessions, or integrating exercise into your program:
1. Aid in recovery / faster “turnaround” of heavy sessions
After a heavy workout (eccentric loads, high volume, sprints, etc) you get muscle micro-damage, inflammation, soreness, stiffness. Massage seems to help reduce soreness (DOMS) and may assist comfort in the recovery window.
By reducing soreness and promoting a more ready-state muscle/tissue, you might better tolerate your next training session (important when load is high).
2. Maintain / improve mobility, flexibility, tissue readiness
Under high training loads, tissues (muscles, fascia, tendons) can tighten, shorten, become less compliant. Massage can help increase range of motion, reduce stiffness, and keep tissues more “prepared” for training.
Better mobility means you’re less likely to alter mechanics (which can lead to overload/injury) when you’re fatigued.
3. Support for managing accumulated load / “niggles”
When you’re training a lot, small issues (tightness, minor discomfort, imbalances) accumulate. Massage allows you to address tissue congestion, muscle-imbalances, trigger points, and relax stress in soft tissues before they turn into bigger problems.
This is especially helpful in “maintenance” phases of training, when you’re not just chasing big improvements but staying healthy under load.
4. Psychological / nervous-system recovery
Training load isn’t only mechanical; there is also stress (physical + mental). Massage may reduce stress hormones, enhance parasympathetic recovery (rest & digest), improve sleep or relaxation which indirectly helps when you have heavy loading.
A less stressed system recovers better, adapts better to training.
5. Injury‐prevention & readiness (indirectly)
While not proven to dramatically improve performance in terms of strength/time, by helping with mobility, readiness, reducing tightness and possibly fatigue accumulation, massage may reduce risk of over-use injuries or training interruptions.
