If you’ve decided to have a massage because of muscle tension or an old injury which has been bothering you, or following unusual exertion, ie: following the start-up of a new exercise program, or a hectic moving day, you may have experienced some aching after the treatment. This soreness after a treatment may seem contradictory, but there is a straight forward explantion.
Muscles which are tight, irritated or over worked are usually functioning with two basic problems:
- Their tension causes them to clamp down on their own supplying blood vessels, slowing down the removal of waste products.
- Discomfort in muscles can promote further accumulation of waste products in muscle tissue.
A cycle is then established.
Several things occur when a tight, achy muscle is treated with massage. Massage strokes will help relax tension in the tissues and actively promote more efficient blood flow. As well, massage will encourage the muscle to start releasing it’s build-up of metabolic wastes. As the bloodstream may take a day or two to fully purge waste products from the area, a generalized, low-grade soreness may be present for that length of time