Not knowing whether you should use vibrating massage therapy or not? Read our article and find out if it’s the right choice for you.
How many times have you gotten home from a hard day’s work or a long workout, feeling drained and in a need of a massage? You begin thinking at this point: what could you do to ease this kind of pain? You remember that massages seem wonderful and they can actually ease that pain of yours – but what about vibrating massagers?
You see them everywhere nowadays. You see them incorporated in chairs, in hand massagers, and all kinds of cool gadgets. But can they do anything about your muscle pain? How can they help your muscles? This article should help give you some insight as to why vibrating massagers are great for your muscles.
What Do Vibrating Massages Entail?
Technically speaking, vibration technology is a fine, gentle, and shaking movement that is performed with hands or fingers – but which can also be found in massaging devices. The vibration movement helps stimulate your nerves, relieve your muscular tension, and also decrease your stress.
If done by hand, this typically involves gentle shaking movements of the masseuse’s palms or fingertips over the surface of the skin. These light vibration techniques usually stimulate your parasympathetic system, relaxing your muscles this way.
However, when a deeper massage is required, hands are replaced by a massager, which can deliver the movement at a much higher speed. That massager can either pass vibration through a massage gun or a vibrating foam roller.
Generally, there are two types of massage therapies where vibration is involved. First, you have a whole-body massage – and then, you have localized massage. Depending on the massage that you are going for, the therapist may require that you sit, stand, or lay flat during the procedure.
Obviously, for the whole-body vibration therapy, the therapist will focus on your whole body, going for every area at a time. However, for a localized massage, the therapist will focus on a certain category of problematic muscles – for example, your thighs. Its popularity has risen quite a lot, mostly due to its ability to deeply relax your muscles. It can also improve the blood flow, which may often help repair damaged tissue.
Why Use Vibrating Massage Therapy?
We get it, massage therapy is relaxing and can help the muscles – but what makes it specifically good for your muscles? Is there any reason why we should take care of our muscles in particular by using vibrating massagers? Well, here are the overall benefits of a handheld massager:
- It improves your muscular strength
- It eases the soreness in your muscles
- It improves your power development
- It improves your blood flow
- It improves your range of motion
Medically speaking, as you can see, there are great reasons to use these tools. You must make sure your muscles stay in good health so that you can prevent any injuries from occurring. This mostly applies to athletes, but at the same time, anyone undergoing a lot of effort (or on the opposite, a lot of sitting still) may have their muscles affected.
You need to keep your muscles strong to be able to support your whole weight and keep you straight throughout the entire day. Otherwise, you would just fall over continuously, pull every muscle, maybe even fracture a bone or two because your muscles are not able to properly keep everything together.
Prevent Injuries
By relaxing the overworked muscles and putting the blood back in motion, you prevent any injury from occurring to your muscles. Plus, aside from injury, you may prevent any weakness, pain, cramping, and other symptoms.
If you are an athlete and exercise on a regular basis, massage therapy can help relax your muscles enough to the point where they no longer feel as sore the next day. They can also be pretty helpful if you have gone through a particularly difficult routine and you can feel your muscles cramping.
On the other hand, even if you are not an athlete and you do not exercise regularly, vibration therapy massages can be quite helpful in certain health conditions. For example, if you suffer from osteoarthritis, vibrating massage therapy can help you relieve some of the symptoms.
Can It Be Harmful to Your Muscles?
Technically speaking, vibrating massage therapy cannot be bad for your muscles – at least, not if you do it correctly. However, you may be careful not to use the massager on the same spot for too long – you may just end up further injuring your muscles.
At the same time, you may want to be particularly careful if you have a pre-existing injury. For example, if the area that you are planning to massage has recently gone through surgery, then it might be too much of a shock for your injury and just make things worse. If the wound is small or unaffected by vibration, you may use the unit – but if not, you might want to refrain from using it, even for a short amount of time.
To be safe, you should always talk to your physical therapist or your doctor before you begin to use such a tool. They should be able to tell you whether it is safe to use or not.
The Bottom Line
Vibrating massagers are a great way for you to treat your sore muscles. They use innovative techniques to relieve the tightness and make you feel more relaxed – all by increasing your blood circulation. You can get the same benefits from a handheld vibrating massager, but you may also get back massagers that you may place on a chair, for example.
Bear in mind that certain conditions may prevent you from using the massager properly – so, if you do decide to use it, make sure you talk with your therapist. For example, they will want to know if you have undergone surgery recently.
