When you schedule a massage appointment before your marathon, it can be done as late as 30 minutes and early as two days before the race. Before the marathon, schedule a massage every other week and at the peak of training, try to schedule one per week.
Honolulu Marathon Massage Therapy can help aid in stress and calm the nerves before the race. As mentioned earlier, this marathon is for everybody, so compete at your own pace, don’t compare yourself to others.
We invite you to consider The Honolulu Marathon as a way to challenge yourself and, at the same time, grow the relationship with your body, which looks like walking when necessary and not pushing past your pain tolerance which can result in injury and more pain.
The importance of massage before a marathon is an excellent way to decrease fatigue and bring circulation to the body. During the pre-marathon massage, we use less oil to not clog your pores right before a race.
Massage therapy for runners is essential to stimulate the muscles and stretch the soft tissue to help prevent injury and damage during exercise while improving flexibility.
When the scar tissue breaks down during a massage, it gives new injuries a chance to heal and for your body to release natural endorphins that work as a natural pain reliever.
Techniques used in pre-marathon massage are:
We then repeat the cycle to stimulate the tissue.
Let’s get real for a moment. Have you ever felt agonizing pain two or three days after exercise? Where your muscles felt so tense and sore that you could barely move and spent your days avoiding excessive movement.
Yeah, it sucks.
When you commit to the challenge of participating in the Honolulu Marathon, your muscles are required to work harder than they usually do, causing microscopic damage to the muscle fibres, leading to muscle stiffness or soreness.
Whether you are an avid runner or trying this whole marathon thing for the first time, some well-deserved self-care for the body is crucial and helps aid in healing.
The recommendation is to schedule your post-massage 72 hours after your marathon so you don’t layer muscle soreness on your body. Post-marathon massage helps decrease muscle tension and improve motion range while helping you relax and reward yourself after days of hard work.
Your post-massage will aid in healing by increasing lymphatic drainage and improve recovery and relaxation of the body. The post-massage helps remove waste and relieve the body from any delayed muscle soreness and help with acute pain from injury.
It is overall improving muscle and tissue elasticity.
Post-marathon massage techniques are a combination of active stretching of the muscles, kneading, long gliding strokes, compressions, and joint mobilizations. We will also provide you with massage techniques you can do at home further down in this blog.
The difference between a regular massage or a sports massage is the movement. The muscles and massage techniques involved are to cater to the client’s muscles targeted for training.
In sports massage, you don’t go past your pain tolerance to avoid further damage and focus on areas that need massage the most.
Here are symptoms and descriptions of common injuries that people deal with and ways to aid in healing and self-care at home.
Iliotibial Band Syndrome
Iliotibial Band Syndrome is associated with pain such as aching, burning, and tenderness on your knee's outer part. Alternative symptoms are clicking, popping, and snapping, and pain up and down your leg. IT Band Syndrome is usually caused by bending the knee repeatedly through running, cycling, long-distance walking, and hiking.
Your IT Band is a thick bunch of fibres, which run outside your hip. Following the outside of the thigh and knee, down to the top of your shinbone.
5 Preventative Measures For IT Band Syndrome:
Achilles Tendinopathies
The Achilles Tendinophatisies result from an overuse injury accompanied by pain in the back of the heels, difficulty walking, and swelling/tenderness of the Achilles.
Your Achilles helps you walk, run and stand on your tip-toes and are the largest tendon in the body that attaches your calf muscles to your heel bone.
5 Preventative Measures:
Plantar Fasciitis
Plantar Fasciitis is the most common cause of heel pain due to inflammation of the thick band of tissue that connects your heel bone to your toes. It is accompanied by a stabbing pain when you take your first few steps in the morning.
You can also trigger Plantar Fasciitis from standing or sitting for long periods.
Keep in mind that pain is worse after exercise.
5 Preventative Measures:
Muscle Strains
Muscle strains are quite common in individuals and result from fatigue, improper muscle use and overuse. Pain can be a single or combination of the following:
Individuals can also experience a “knotted up” feeling, muscle spasms, stiffness, and weakness, usually in the lower back, neck, shoulders, and hamstrings.
5 Preventative Measures:
Post and Pre Marathon Massage Therapy For Runners On Oahu are beneficial for overall recovery and performance. Your massage therapist can decide whether it is good or bad to go hard on a muscle after feeling it.
You play a role in ensuring that you don’t go past your pain threshold to avoid further damage or injury to the muscle; let your massage therapist know about pain levels and areas of concern.
With post and pre-marathon massage, you can expect less inflammation in massaged limbs due to a 30% increase in genes that help rebuild mitochondria, which are engines that turn energy from the cell's food to aid in recovery and repair.
Sports medicine uses massage to help athletes with recovery and rehabilitation. As well as prepare athletes for competition, enhance performance, and help aid with musculoskeletal injuries.
Sports Massage is also suggested for pre-competition anxiety.
Most Common Sports Medicine Literature:
Effleurage technique is performed to the muscle's length in the “away from the centre” (distal) to the proximal sequence. The applied pressure is slow, light, and gentle.
Includes kneading, wringing, scooping strokes with deeper pressure to the patient pain threshold.
The technique applies pressure to the target issues using the fingers.
Here are some tools that you can use to loosen up the muscles at home through massage. Ensure that you are applying careful pressure to avoid causing the muscles to tighten in defence due to pain.
Help relieve muscle tightness, soreness, inflammation and increase your joint range of motion. Foam rollers are a great tool to use during warm-up or cooldown.
Tennis balls can help reduce tension, tightness, and sore muscles while increasing blood flow and alleviating pain and stiffness. A tennis ball can also get into the deeper parts of the muscle and help relieve the pain.
Yoga is a perfect activity for recovery for runners or anyone. It helps with relieving soreness and tension of the muscles while restoring your range of motion.
The answer is yes!
As mentioned before, The Honolulu Marathon caters to everyone, meaning that walkers are welcome and EVERYONE will get the chance to finish the race.
The race itself is mainly flat except for Diamond Head which will put you at about 124 ft. above sea-level near mile 9.
Suppose you are considering training for the marathon, which we highly recommend! Here are a few guidelines! Please consult with your physician if you have conditions that can prevent you from running and heavily exercising.
Learn to listen to your body!
It’s essential to look after your body while training, and this is an excellent opportunity for you to become more in tune with what your body needs and how it reacts to the new training schedule.
We encourage you to challenge yourself while ensuring your safety and health.
If you are looking for or are interested in Honolulu Marathon Massage Therapy, we got you covered.
We understand the stress and the pressure that comes with heavily exercising and training, so we want to be there for you when it comes to all things healing the muscles and your body.
Conveniently, we are located right in the heart of town in Honolulu, on Oahu.
We have a special gift for you. When you present your valid Honolulu Marathon ticket, we gift you 10% off your massage for being a good "sport".
Schedule your appointment with us now and claim your gift at (808) 200-4611, or you can request an appointment online, and someone will get back to you. :)
We look forward to hearing about your marathon journey!
