11

Are there any studies that support some type of health benefit associated with receiving a massage of any type?

Improve this question
2
  • Massage relaxes mucles, this is surly unquestionable, and must be very helpful in many medical areas, for example removing nearly all pain for a significant amount of time to enable movement to aid recovery from pain and/or injury. But even the aspect of good feeling can be beneficial to health. A lack of good feeling for an extended length of time can lead to the worst possible self inflicted side effect of injury, and freeing up of a patients body to move and recover is very likely to prevent this. ...
    – alan2here
    Aug 22, 2016 at 0:32
  • ... Massage, either in its most raw form, or, for example, in a more involved manner by a physician such as an osteopath, can be essential. I feel that I should add these two comments despite my lack of sources, and welcome feedback to the sentement I pose, with an acceptance that I could be wrong.
    – alan2here
    Aug 22, 2016 at 0:47

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
6

There are a couple of studies that show massage will help with delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) after exercise, but that it doesn't really impact range of motion (ROM) or peak maximal force.

This study used a small cohort of 5 males, 5 females, doing arm exercises designed to produce DOMS. One arm got massaged, the other didn't. They self reported less DOMS in the massaged muscle, but it showed no impact on ROM or peak force.

This study followed a similar path, examining hamstring contractions with a slightly larger group of 18. Each leg was exercised, and only one was massaged with similar results to the first study I cited.

So yes, massage can reduce some of the after effects of intense exercise sessions, it hasn't been proven to actually improve performance.

Improve this answer
2
  • 1
    How is reducing DOMS a health benefit above just feeling good? Is DOMS a health risk? This does not answer the question asked. The studies cited are good beginning points, but their sample size is too small to prove your claim that "massage can reduce some of the after effects of intense exercise sessions" and leaves all the legwork of determining truth or fiction to the original asker's knowledge of sample size. Implying that this is a complete answer ignores the more pertinent health benefits of massage, and leaves the reader to assume that there are no other benefits.
    – Dr. Duncan
    Aug 25, 2015 at 22:18
  • @Dr.Duncan - Pain reduction is one of the most common and important functions health care providers provide. If you have other valid objections (it seems to me there's a bit of a peeve in your comment), please state them objectively.
    – anongoodnurse
    Aug 28, 2015 at 5:13
13

As a pragmatic approach I would suggest the following. Back pain and neck pain are the most common reasons why people seek for massage therapy. Most common reason for back and neck pain are muscle spasms. They are painful which cause more spasm a so a vicious circle is ready. Reason why people suffer from muscle spasm is multifactorial. Static working postures, poor muscle strength or generally bad posture leads to unfavourable muscle strains and spasms.

Massage can be really effective for the treatment of these muscle spasms. Massage relieves tension, boosts the blood flow in muscle and helps to remove lactic acid stored in muscles. However, the spasms will definitely appear again if one does not to anything to treat the fundamental reasons why muscle spasm occurs. As so there is no long term effect with massage therapy.

There are two Cochrane reviews published in this topic (1), (2):

Massage might be beneficial for patients with subacute and chronic non-specific low-back pain, especially when combined with exercises and education (1)

There is no explicit evidence for the benefits, but what is important is that there is basically no adverse effects related to massage therapy. So in that sense massage can be helpful also for your mind and wellbeing. Exercise and education indicates the same thing I said in the beginning, in addition to relieving the spasms in your back you should also focus on the overall situation, "why do I have backpain".

With regard to neck pain the evidence is much more controversial. My personal opinion is that this might be related to etiology of the pain and spasm. Lower back in more common is obese people with poor physical condition (3) whereas neck pain is associated to overuse and bad postures (4).

Improve this answer
2

Beyond addressing injuries, or as a treatment, massage has been shown to have many health benefits for otherwise healthy individuals in addition to feeling good. Here are some examples of health benefits that have some research to back them up:

Many of these benefits can also be gained by other means such as exercise or meditation, but that does not diminish the fact that massage is a means of achieving these benefits.

Improve this answer
2
  • 1
    As requested, I have taken a look at the question and answer, as well as the comments and discussion. I think that this answer only peripherally answers the question. It is a collection of links with no interpretation or summation, so if the links die the answer is useless. Additionally, the research is not totally proven, and leaves all the legwork of determining truth or fiction to the original asker. As such, it is a fairly poor answer (In my opinion). I think it could be made into an excellent answer if the pros/cons/ambiguities are cleared up.
    – JohnP
    Aug 24, 2015 at 19:24
  • 1
    For further elaboration on this position, see this meta post from a SE Community moderator, as well as this answer from the same person.
    – JohnP
    Aug 24, 2015 at 19:25

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and cookie policy

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.