Does Post Exercise Massage Improve Blood Flow and Reduce Lactic Acid?

There was a recent study in the Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise that discussed the effect of post-exercise massage on blow flow and lactic acid removal. You can see the abstract here. There is additional coverage here.

Here was one of the key premises of the study:

“More to the point, “most people think that one of the main benefits of massage is that it removes lactic acid,” he says, whether such dispersal is important or not. “We wanted to see if massage fulfills” that promise.”

The study wasn’t designed to determine the negative affects of lactic acid (or not) and that is up for debate as well. It was simply to determine if massage improved blood flow and thus helped to remove lactic acid post-exercise.

Volunteers went through a forearm exercise regime that caused muscle fatigue and lactic-acid build up.

Following the exercise: “they either lay quietly for 10 minutes (passive recovery), intermittently squeezed a handgrip at about10 percent of their maximum strength for the same 10 minutes (active recovery) or had their arm massaged by a certified sports-massage therapist for 10 undoubtedly pleasurable minutes. Throughout, blood flow to the forearm muscle of the volunteers was measured by ultrasound, while their lactic acid concentrations were monitored via blood samples.”

Here was the result of the study:

“It turned out that massage did not increase blood flow to the tired muscle; it reduced it. Every stroke, whether long and slow or deep and kneading, cut off blood flow to the forearm muscle. Although the flow returned to normal between strokes, the net effect was to lessen the amount of blood that reached the muscle, particularly compared with the amount that flowed to the forearm muscle during 10 minutes of passive recovery. Meanwhile, active recovery reduced blood flow as well, since muscular contractions, however slight, compress blood vessels in the muscle briefly. But the overall reduction of blood flow was significantly less during active recovery than during the massage session.”

So at the end of the day – massage did not improve blood flow and did not reduce lactic acid significantly.

So does this mean that massage has no benefit. I don’t believe you can come to that conclusion from this study and neither do the authors of the study. They obviously feel that more research is necessary. It is quite possible that there are additional physiological changes that transpire with massage that are not reflected in this research piece.

So…if our premise behind using massage post exercise or post activity is to help improve blood flow and to help reduce lactic acid, then we need to understand that this particular goal of treatment is not going to be accomplished based upon this reasearch.

What are your thoughts on this study? Massage following exercise is still going to be popular – what is the rationale for use? Interested in your thoughts?