Sports Performance
YOUR PERSONAL STRATEGIC THERAPEUTIC PROGRAM
Altered States of Science offers year round support to athletes, specializing in the needs of cyclists and tri-athletes. Whether you are a serious or casual athlete, Altered States will design a strategy to enhance the performance, longevity and the enjoyment of your sport.
WHAT WILL SPORTS MASSAGE DO FOR MY ATHLETIC PERFORMANCE?
• It may increase performance
• Speed recovery/reduce soreness
• Assist your rehabilitation after an injury
• Promote proper alignment of the muscle tissue, thereby increasing muscle efficiency.
• Help prevent injury
• Extend the length of your athletic career
HOW IS SPORTS MASSAGE DIFFERENT FROM ANY OTHER KIND OF MASSAGE?
Sports Massage is different from other types of massage for two main reasons:
1) The goal of general massage is to relieve pain and tension and restore the muscles back to a balanced, pain free state. The goal of Sports Massage is to increase athletic performance level.
2) General massage is for the health and wholeness of anyone. Sports Massage is specifically for those with trained muscles, and will focus on fine-tuning for maximum performance.
HOW DOES SPORTS MASSAGE FIT INTO MY ATHLETIC TRAINING?
Sports Massage will enhance your training both on and off season.
On season, your personal Sports Massage program may include any or all of the following:
• Pre-event Sports Massage: Received close to an event, utilizes techniques to broaden and flatten the muscle tissue and increase the circulation, cell metabolism and nutrition in the muscles. The goal is to reach a state called "durable hyperemia" a state of the muscle having an extra supply of blood and oxygen. Along with your usual training and warm-up activities, this type of Sports Massage can give you an edge for an event by increasing muscle endurance, and lengthen the time before the muscles will fatigue. ;
• Maintenance Sports Massage during the season: Received at least 72 hours before the next event, your personal therapeutic program would include massage designed to seek out areas of stress in the muscles and prevent injury or chronic pain before it begins to happen.
• Post Event: Sports Massage is vital to post event recovery. A post event Sports Massage will increase circulation to promote the bodies natural healing processes for flushing out the toxins that are a by product of extreme exertion from an event. Soreness is reduced, recovery is quickened.
Off season, your personal Sports Massage program will work alongside your winter training to prepare you for the season ahead. Your personal Sports Massage program will focus on:
• breaking down deep scar tissue and adhesions in the muscles which inhibit the full range and power of your movement as well as your circulation. Sports Massage in this capacity will decrease muscle fatigue when you start to train harder as you prepare for the season to come.
• re-aligning muscle tissue to release the full power of your movement.
• increasing your flexibility and joint mobility.
• rehabilitation and speeding recovery if you have had an injury.
• breaking holding patterns to prevent injury and maximize performance.
Cyclists
In his book, 'The Science of Cycling', Edmund Burke produced a graph showing the amount of exertion required from the key muscles in each portion of the cyclist's stroke. This work was a graphic example of the fine-tuning of the muscles of a cyclist, as well as the danger of overuse and repetitive strain injuries.
Taking this into account, your Sports Massage from Altered States of Science will be tailored to your needs whether it performance enhancement, injury prevention or post-rehabilitation.
Altered States understands the specific needs of a cyclist vs. other sports. Your therapeutic strategy will be designed with you to maximize your performance and work towards giving you that '20% edge'.
Triathletes
As a tri-athlete your therapeutic needs are not merely a 'sum' of swimmer, cyclist, runner. There is a synergy between the three disciplines that produces a unique dynamic in your body. It is important that your therapeutic massage strategy be designed with all of the ways you use your different muscles in mind.
A few examples:
• Your shoulders and arms are those of a swimmer, but in distance cycling they are also stressed with impact and held in one position for long periods of time.
• Your thighs, gluteal muscles and psoas are worked one way against water resistance in swimming, then are called upon to contract differently in cycling, then again in running with the addition of impact.
• Your knees are required to repeat the same motion (sometimes under misalignment) in cycling then experience force and impact in running, often in a state of pain and near exhaustion.
Whether it be pre-event, post-event or maintenance, your massage at Altered States will be designed for your specific needs as a tri-athlete vs. other sports massage which is centering on the needs of only one discipline.
