How I Improved My WEIGHT LOSS BENEFITS OF MASSAGE
There is no doubt that massage makes you feel good. Sports massage makes you feel amazing even after being deep-tissue. Massage can relieve stress, help you recover from strenuous physical activity or injury, and even reduce anxiety, but can it help you achieve your weight loss goals?
Research shows that massage can have a positive effect on your muscle-building ability and fitness level, increasing your ability to control or lose weight.
Healthy strong muscles burn calories and give you the freedom to participate in all kinds of sports and activities that can help you burn extra calories and improve your overall fitness and well-being.
Massage has the following benefits that can directly affect your ability to control or reduce your weight:
1. Massage has been shown to improve circulation and the delivery of nutrients to the muscles. Massage enhances the exchange of vital substances between blood and tissue cells, which leads to an increase in tissue metabolism. After exercising muscles, they must be provided with essential nutrients so that they can recover and rebuild themselves. Massage maximizes this supply of nutrients and oxygen by increasing blood flow, which helps muscles grow and burn more calories as a result.
2. Massage improves the range of motion of your muscles and their flexibility. This allows them to maintain maximum energy and performance while being active and burn the maximum number of calories in the process.
Improved range of motion and flexibility reduce muscle soreness during recovery and muscle repair.
The wide range of motion and maximum muscle flexibility minimize the risk of injury during exercise that can severely limit activity, exercise and weight loss progress.
3. Massage helps in reducing the time required for recovery between workouts. Muscles produce waste products such as lactic and carbonic acid during and after exercise. The increased circulation to these muscles helps to eliminate toxic debris created by these waste products and in doing so reduces recovery time.
The shorter recovery time means you can safely do more exercise in a given amount of time, which means you have the opportunity to burn more calories in your efforts to achieve your personal weight loss goals.
4. Massage can also help reduce your chances of overtraining. Massage has a relaxing effect on the muscles and a calming effect on the nervous system. By helping you relax, which is a very important component of any exercise program, massage can reduce your chances of experiencing over-training syndrome, which limits your ability to build strong healthy muscles and Hence known to be most effectively for reducing weight.
5. Apart from all the above, massage can directly help in fat loss. According to some research studies, massage is believed to be able to rupture the fat capsule in the subcutaneous tissue so that the fat is released and absorbed. Thus, in conjunction with proper nutrition and exercise, massage can really help with weight loss.
6. As we have already mentioned, massage helps in preventing and healing injuries. By stretching connective tissue, massage improves circulation to help prevent or break down adhesions and scar tissue caused by muscle tears and other common muscle injuries. Massage influences the release of certain fluids (nitrogen, phosphorus, sulphur) which help in tissue repair. A quick and effective recovery from injury means you can resume exercising quickly after sustaining an injury and get your weight loss progress back on track.
So there you have it. There are many benefits of massage that can indirectly and possibly even directly help you achieve your weight loss goals.
Regular massage is just as important a component of any comprehensive fitness and weight loss program as regular exercise and proper nutrition, for those of us who used to think that exercising and losing weight was hard work! Remember, losing weight means leading a balanced lifestyle and massage is an essential part of any balanced lifestyle.
If you haven't had a massage recently, what are you waiting for? Get on the phone and make yourself a booking. If you've never had a massage before, make sure you get a massage from a qualified massage therapist.
If you are unsure of a massage practitioner's qualifications and experience, ask for referrals, professional training information and make sure they are certified by a reputable organization or institution.
And remember, have fun!
Scott Haywood is editor of weightloss.com.au, Australia's leading weight loss and healthy lifestyle website. weightloss.com.au with healthy recipes, weight loss product reviews, weight loss business directory and a very popular weight loss forum
