Sometimes if a muscle is sore (after a light workout/ day at work) a massage feels good, but other times (heavy workout or injuries) touching the muscle just hurts more.
What is the physical mechanism behind a good massage?
In: 5
Massaging the muscle tends to help blood circulate better in the region and take away the inflammatory response of muscles. I am no doctor but thats what my physiotherapist explained to me.
Tbh,i tried so hard to eli5 it
When you have an “ouchie” like a sore muscle or a headache, it’s because something is not quite right in your body. Massages can help relieve that “ouchie” feeling by gently pressing and rubbing on the area that hurts. This can help increase blood flow to the area and release tension in your muscles, which can make you feel better. It’s like giving your body a gentle hug and telling it that everything is going to be okay. So next time you have an “ouchie,” try giving yourself a little massage and see if it helps!
The case where a massage is most effective and relieving is when a muscle has been in low strain but for a long time. That often happens in your back and neck due to posture issues where they continuously compensate. This means the muscle is being forced to work, but because it is not moving while doing so, blood has a hard time circulating through it. Blood can only properly flow through a relaxed muscle, as when it is tense, it will resist soaking through much like a towel resists soaking up water when you wring it. Under a more normal load, say running for example, the short time the muscle is relaxed between steps is enough to pump blood through it.
Everything the muscle needs to function is supplied by blood flow. Every waste product the muscle creates is removed by blood flow.
When you remove proper blood flow, and also force the muscle to work, energy gets slowly depleted. More importantly, waste builds up. Most notably lactic acid, which is what’s left after we burn energy and before oxygen has been able to further process it. Lactic acid isn’t great for the muscle tissue long term. It causes inflammation and slowly breaks down the tissue.
The ensuing light inflammation caused by the waste products will make the muscle start to swell slightly, in an attempt to flush out the waste. Unfortunately, this can have the effect of creating even more pressure inside the muscle which can constrict the blood flow even more. What you have now is that sore and tense “lump” that hurts when touched, but it’s still sooo relieving to smash it up a little.
So what happens when you massage the lump is you’re basically doing CPR on it. When you push on it, you force waste and fluids out of the muscle. When you release the pressure, it gets an opportunity to be supplied with fresh blood. Slowly “pumping” the muscle like this, keeps pushing out the bad stuff, and bringing in good stuff.
If it’s gotten to the point of inflammation, it won’t be fixed instantly, but you’ll be on your way there.
Edit: as for when it’s *not* good nor very pleasant, is when there is trauma or damage to the muscle. If it’s already receiving all the circulation it needs, a massage is unlikely to help much, and may cause further damage like any poking around in an injury might, by disrupting the repair process.
This will probably not be well received, because people get very grouchy about their preferred alternative medicine, but most studies suggest massages work really well because of….. the placebo effect. That’s about it.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29620922/#:~:text=Conclusions%3A%20Reiki%20and%20massage%20clinically,considered%20to%20validate%20the%20data.
A fun study which compared getting a massage to a reiki treatment (scientifically speaking, reiki is a ‘no touch’ treatment in which someone waves their hands directly over your body for a little while). Both were about equally effective.
The placebo effect basically says “if you think something will help, it will help symptoms, especially in the short term”. Good Physiotherapists absolutely believe massage uses this mechanism (but also think there are others at play) and in fact try to maximize the effect since it has a very real effect on outcomes.
People are going to talk about blood flow, circulation, pressure affecting muscles, pumping blood / relieving acid build up, releasing tension, and all kinds of physical reasons why it ‘works’. None of that has really good evidence to support whether it actually affects outcomes beyond the placebo effect at play (which we don’t really understand either). Massages can also negatively effect health outcomes, especially if the issue involves cysts, actual injury, or serious inflammation (pressure on hurt things can shockingly make injuries worse).
But to your original question of why does it feel good? We seem to get relief and soothing effects (release of good chemicals in the old brain) from most perceived positive touch (scratches, massage, someone kissing an injury, a hug, etc), and pressure does often mask pain receptor signals so it can provide instant pain relief while you are getting it.
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