Sports Massage

I've been going to the gym with a friend, and when we were stretching she mentioned to me that I felt a little tight in my muscles. She recommended that a massage should help, and I had already heard about the beneficial effects of massage on sports injuries, so I figured a registered massage therapist could help me out. I've kind of developed this soreness in the front of my shins just medial to the front bone. It did affect my running last week as it was hampering my run. Sports injuries are nothing new to me, but I think I was a bit naive thinking I would be able to do all of this training without my legs saying that all of this is too much. To be proactive against my soreness and injuries, I decided to get a sports massage. Note that I'm calling this soreness an injury because it is affecting my speed when I run, and it's also in kind of an unusual place to be just a 'regular kind of sore'.  I went to a place in Burnaby called Fortius, which is part of a larger sports medicine center. This place is a real top of the line facility and you can tell all their practitioners are highly trained. They have every type of practitioner you can think of, including sports medicine physicians, orthopaedic surgeons, and registered massage therapists. I only saw a registered massage therapist at my appointment.

The massage itself was fantastic. It felt so good when she pushed on the pressure points near my hips. Those must've been tight, and I could tell they really needed that. I chose the therapist I chose because her past clients have included the Canadian National Track team, as well as professional sports teams.

On the Mayo Clinic website, it mentioned that massages are no longer about 'pampering yourself', and that they actually have a lot of health benefits. I haven't done the research on the health benefits myself yet though, but I'm inclined to believe it from what I already know. If I had a partner I'd suggest that we give each other massages semi regularly. Aside from the health benefits and the intimate connection, we would also save some money. Then once in a while we could augment it with a professional massage from a registered massage therapist. I'll probably go back for another massage at Fortius in about 2-3 weeks, hopefully that should help me out a lot.

In order to reduce impact I might do more of the elliptical at the gym instead of running at the track. I thought it'd be cool to get my body to the point where I can do cardio twice a day. Depending on how much stress consistent elliptical work puts on my legs, I may be able to incorporate 'two-a-days' sooner rather than later. That would be great. It'd also be great if I could get in the pool to do some laps too. When I was doing my cardio today I noticed that my cardiovascular and respiratory systems felt a lot more efficient than even a few weeks ago. Even though my body getting more efficient will mean it is burning less calories and thus it is harder to lose drastic amounts of weight, I need to be more efficient so that I can run faster for track. Also I'm sure that the weight will all come off eventually. When I saw my aunt on Sunday, she said I had lost a lot of weight from stomach area. Despite everyone saying I look good and have lost a lot of weight, I'm not letting up. It's all about the end game for me. 

Speaking of two-a-days, I should be in pretty prime shape by the time the NFL season starts. Whenever I think I'm training hard, I just watch videos on the NFL training (or college football videos or Kobe or LeBron videos) and I truely believe that they are some of the most prime physical specimens in the world. It is actually so inspiring for me. I've felt this way about the NFL for so long, and I'm so happy that I'm finally strongly acting on my athletic dreams and ideals so that I can then make my dreams into goals and my goals into reality.