Research scientists from the Queen’s University in Australia presented a study at last month’s American College of Sports Medicine annual meeting that demonstrated that post-exercise massage does not remove lactic acid as commonly stated by some massage therapists and athletes. Interestingly enough, their study demonstrated the exact opposite physiologic response to post-exercise massage – that the massage actually decreased blood flow to the muscles, which would actually inhibit and slow the removal of lactic acid and other byproducts from the muscle tissue.
The study looked at 12 healthy volunteers that completed a hand-grip exercise and then had blood flow in the forearm muscles measured before after after massage as performed on the forearm muscles. The researchers also measured lactic acid levels by taking blood samples both before and after the post-exercise massage was done on the test subjects.
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