Lifting Weights? Learn How Massage Therapy Can Enhance Your Gains and Recovery

 The goal of weight lifting is to build your muscles. That means impact, recovery, regrowth, bloodflow, lactic acid, and constantly shaping your muscle development as new tissue grows. Most weight lifters start with a clear goal. You know how strong you want to be and the muscles you want to develop. But not everyone realizes just how important massage therapy can be to the process.
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Massage is a key element to optimal weight lifting by assisting with shaping, lymphatic drainage, flexibility, pain relief, and enhanced workout recovery. If you want to achieve your best strength training performance, building muscles that are both powerful and flexible, massage plays an important role. Let's talk about how massage benefits both your gains and your health.

Massage and Workout Recovery and Faster Gains

Once you master heavy weight lifting, one of the biggest challenges is recovery. The fatigue and muscle ache after an intense weight lifting session can put you in "rest mode" for two or three days.

Want to get back on your game with less aches and pains? Massage is the secret ingredient.

Increase Bloodflow and Muscle Growth

Massage pushes blood through your muscle tissue. Blood carries the nutrients your muscles need to grow, including the protein and oxygen used to build new muscle. Bloodflow enhances your healing rate when you have a muscle tear (and micro-tears are part of the weight-lifting process) as well as the overall rate of growth for building muscle tissue. Check out this study from Harvard that explains how massage helps muscle recovery and repair.

Remove Lactic Acid

The chemical reaction that turns calories into power in your muscles releases lactic acid. Lactic acid is "the burn" in your muscles that causes pain both during and after a workout. Lymphatic draining massage methods push the lactic acid out of your muscle tissue so it is flushed safely into the lymphatic system so you can recover faster with less pain - and safely get back to your weights sooner.

Prevent and Release Knots

No one's form is perfect. If you torqued a squat or turned your wrist slightly too far on a pronated curl, muscle knots can become sources of pain and hold you back on your next workout. A massage can work out the knots and points of tension so you can get back on your game.

Sleep and Recovery

Massage is also extremely helpful for deep, healing sleep. Weight lifters rely on sleep so the body goes through its full maintenance, repair, and growth cycle during the deepest part of the sleep cycle. A good massage can help you speed through recovery while enjoying pleasant dreams.


Massage for Strength and Flexibility

The goal of weight lifting isn't just to become strong, it's to shape your body into an incredible machine. That means both strength and flexibility. Keeping your muscles limber, stretched, and loose will help them grow into the ideal shape and ensure that you are able to achieve peak physical performance for everything from field sports to vacation activities.

If you want to lift, twist, reach,  stretch, and achieve optimal agility as well as strength, massage is a great addition to your routine.

Growing Muscles Long

When you are growing new muscle tissue, the greatest strength and flexibility come from stretching and relaxing the muscles during the growth/recovery phase. Massage can help you extend your limbs, shoulders, leg, and back muscles as you recover, pushing out the lactic acid and promoting bloodflow while new tissue grows. 

This ensures that the new muscle tissue is not just dense and strong, but also long and flexible, able to perform any task without cramping, knotting, or tearing.

Shaping Muscle Growth with Massage

You can also make progress toward your ideal muscular shape by pursuing massage during the recovery phase. By activating the growing muscles through massage during your rest days, you can gain the benefit of fast growth during a deep rest and encourage the muscles to grow into the shape you desire with stretching and focused nutrients from greater bloodflow.

Preventing Workout Injury

Weight-lifting injuries are dangerous because you are dealing with heavy weights that must be perfectly balanced for safe lifting. Your shoulders, hips, core, and arms must all align for a safe lift. which means knots and tension naturally increase your risk for injury.

This is why massage is often used both before and after a workout to ensure that your body is ready for a safe, balanced lift at all times.

Massage Before Lifting

Massage before lifting helps to remove uneven tension in your body. Your massage therapist will work out knots, stretch out your bilateral muscles evenly so you can achieve balance, and help you limber up before a lift so there is minimal risk of strains and tears while you are lofting heavy weights off the rack and above your head.

Massage After Lifting

Lifting weights also increases the risk that you will develop uneven tension, knots, and mild tissue damage. Massage after weight lifting can enhance your recovery and help encourage your body to heal evenly so that you are balanced and ready to lift more weights on your next workout day.


Massage for Weight Lifting at The Wellness Hub

Whether you are a dedicated weight lifter or just getting started with a heavy weights routine, massage can help you enhance your gains, speed recovery, reduce pain, preserve your flexibility, and improve your overall performance. Give yourself or a loved one the gift of massage designed to complement a weight lifting routine at The Wellness Hub in Jacksonville, FL. Contact us today or stop by for a personalized massage therapy based on your unique physical needs and workout goals.



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We are pleased to serve the following Florida communities with massage therapy, chiropractic, organic skincare, acupuncture, red light therapy and more: Jacksonville, Orange Park, Fleming Island, Mandarin, Jacksonville Beach, Nocatee, St Johns, Ponte Vedra and beyond.

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