Massage therapy has been around for at least five thousand years. There are references in ancient documents of the Chinese imperial court identifying massage as a healing art; in the Bible, there are verses about anointing the human body with oil may that well have referred to some form of healing massage. The Greek physician Hippocrates advised massage routines for his patients. In various forms, therapeutic massage could be found in just about every corner of the ancient world.
Modern athletes are rediscovering the benefits of sports massage. Elite athletes in all sports find that an sports massage therapist can help them train longer, recover more quickly after workouts and injuries, and perform better during competition. Amateur athletes can reap the same benefits, but without an expert training staff to guide you, it can be a challenge to find and ask for what you need.
Here are some things you should know about sports massage:
Not all massage is designed to improve athletic performance. All massage feels good and has some therapeutic benefit. But the soothing massage you receive at a spa is not intended to treat muscles that have been performing at capacity during a workout or competition. Not all massage therapists have the extensive anatomical and kinesthetic training needed to understand which muscle groups have been used or how to help them recover. Therapists who specialize in sports massage have studied athletes and performance and know what it takes to improve function and range of motion.
Massage should be a regular therapy, not a one-time event. Training for competition requires regular and thoughtfully planned workouts. Likewise, massage therapy is more effective when it comes at regular intervals. Massage therapy offers cumulative benefits over time; it’s rare that one session will solve a problem. It also takes time for the body to become accustomed to the deep work required to treat injuries. Massage therapy helps the muscles, fascia and nerves work together to repair, flush or return the muscle to its normal state. Regular massage helps muscles remember what to do to recover and helps the effects last longer.
Effective sports massage uses a variety of modalities. A therapist who only knows a couple of styles of massage may not be able to influence all the systems that your body uses during and after your workout. For example, Swedish massage, the most common massage technique, works on your parasympathetic system. That’s the system that controls “rest and digest” functions, and Swedish is very effective for recovery after competition. But it’s not at all effective before; in fact, a Swedish massage before competing will impair your performance. Ask your therapist how many modalities he has been trained in – the more versatile he is, the more effective he’ll be for an athlete.
If you’re serious about improving your athletic performance, you probably have a personal trainer or coach working with you. Together, you work on a plan for improving speed, endurance, or performance. An expert sports massage therapist can maximize your workouts and shorten your recovery time. If you haven’t incorporated regular sports massage into your training plan, you might be leaving some performance on the table, so to speak.
Authors:
Thomas Moody, LMT is a licensed massage therapist in practice at Definition Fitness in San Marco. He is certified in Neuromuscular Massage. Thom is part of the sports medicine team of the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars and Jacksonville University, and has worked with collegiate and Olympic athletes in many sports. He is also certified as a Level One USAA Track and Field Coach. Candace Moody is a writer based in Jacksonville.
Attention Clients: We are setting up a challenge series to help keep you focused, fit, and healthy during the next 2 months. We know the holidays can get hard to stay on track but lets stay strong and work hard through this time together as a team backing each other up! If that’s not enough we will be keeping a running point system just to make it interesting and at the end of these 2 months we will have 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winner with some amazing prizes including free training session, free massage, or Definition merchandise. Don’t miss out on your chance to stay on track of your fitness and enjoy some amazing prizes!!
With that said our first challenge:
CHALLENGE #1
Nutrition: Food Journal
•Keep a food journal for 5 consecutive days.
•List all food(s) and drink(s) consumed from morning to bedtime.
•Include meals AND snacks, and date/time of day for each entry.
•Portion size or calorie count not required*
*Include calorie count for each entry and gain an additional point!!
If your training hard…like I know most of you are, you need to take some rest days. Usually about 1 to 3 days, this can usually help prevent repetitive stress injuries and give your muscles the time they need for repair. But that doesn’t mean you need to a couch potato and veg-out all day on the couch! Being moderately active can actually help your body with recovery. Getting your heart rate up helps to get your blood flowing, bringing oxygen and nutrients to muscles damaged by working out. Getting your blood pumping will also help flush away waste products like lactic acid that can build up in muscles post exercise. Try doing some activity that you enjoy for about 20-30 minutes. Some ideas for active rest exercise: a power walk, a bike ride about town (avoiding serious climbs, of course), or a leisurely paced swim, gardening, or just playing with the kiddos! So be sure to get out there and enjoy those rest day.
Definition Fitness is pleased to add Sports Massage Therapy to our array of performance training services.
Regular sports massage provides many benefits to athletes, including:
•Reducing the chance of injury both through education on stretching and event preparation, as well as deep tissue massage.
•Improving range of motion, strength, performance times.
•Shortening recovery time between workouts.
•Maximizing the supply of nutrition and oxygen through increased blood flow.
•Enhancing elimination of metabolic wastes (i.e., lactic acid) that are a by-product of exercise.
Athletes that work with sports massage therapists improve performance, lengthen their careers and experience fewer injuries. When injured, sports massage can speed recovery and help an athlete come back after surgery more quickly.
We welcome Thom Moody, LMT, to the staff. Thom brings 16 years of clinical and sports massage results to Definition Fitness. He has been the lead instructor at Heritage Institute and is a sports massage therapist for Jacksonville University and the Jacksonville Jaguars. His private clients have included NCAA, professional and Olympic athletes from several countries. Massage appointments are available (DAYS) mornings and by special appointment.
Thom Moody, Sports Massage Therapist
Thom is a licensed massage therapist who trained at Southeastern School of Massage Therapy in Jacksonville and is certified in Neuromuscular Massage Therapy. His continuing education in sports massage has included workshops with Benny Vaughn and Mike McGillicuddy, both nationally recognized as leaders in sports massage techniques. He is also certified as a Level One USAA Track and Field Coach.
Since 2000, Thom has been working with athletic teams at Jacksonville University and the University of North Florida, performing over 10,000 sessions of massage in the training room and on the field in coordination with a team of medical doctors, sports trainers and coaches. He has worked on male and female student athletes on football, soccer, volleyball, baseball, softball, swimming, crew, and track and field teams. He’s also worked with world class athletes such as NCAA All American track stars Monique Tubbs, Andrea Pressley and Natasha Harvey, and members of the Irish Olympic track and field team.
Thom has achieved results with former NFL athletes in private practice, good training for his current work as part of the sports medicine team of the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars.
Thom has worked with injured athletes pre- and post-surgery, and worked on performance enhancement with healthy athletes. The diversity of his experience, both in nature of the therapy and variety of teams, helps him understand and get results with athletes from almost every sport. He works with elite runners, triathletes, cyclists, and weekend golfers trying to better their game.
As a past athlete and retired Navy rescue swimmer, Thom has an understanding of the unique needs, both mental and physical, of an athlete preparing for competition or recovering from an injury.
Thom Moody, LMT, will provide onsite massage therapy beginning September 3. Inquire about appointments and rates at the front desk.
When most people think of cardio, they think of long, boring jogs, or endless hours on the elliptical. I’ve got good news for you: there’s a method of cardio that takes much less time and is far superior to jogging to help you burn fat. It’s called High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT)! High Intensity Interval Training involves alternating between very intense bouts of exercise and low intensity exercise/recovery. For example, sprinting for 30 seconds, then walking for 60 seconds is high intensity interval training. HIIT can be used both anaerobically (in the gym with weights) and/or aerobically with cardio.
The “Fat Burning Zone” shown on most cardio equipment is usually only 60%-65% of max heart rate, this is really a myth and is NOT optimal for burning fat. Yes, you burn more fat relative to glycogen when going for a walk, but what we care about is total fat burn. At higher intensities, you are burning far more fat, even though the fat/glycogen ratio is lower. In addition, interval training allows you to exercise at very high intensities for a much longer period of time than steady state, so you burn more fat.
There are a number of great benefits to High Intensity Interval Training besides serious fat burn that include:
• Increased Aerobic Capacity – The amount of oxygen your body can use (oxygen uptake) is increased, so your overall aerobic capacity can increase faster than with low intensity endurance exercise.
• Increased Lactate Threshold – Your ability to handle increased lactic acid buildup in your muscles increases.
• Improved Insulin Sensitivity – Over time, your muscles more readily hold onto glucose, instead of the glucose going to your fat stores.
• Anabolic Effect – Some studies show that interval training combined with consuming slightly more calories than you burn creates an anabolic effect, which helps you put on muscle. The opposite occurs with steady state cardio, which for long durations is catabolic.
As an added bonus, there’s also an afterburn effect known as EPOC (excess-post exercise oxygen consumption). You increase your metabolism and burn more calories for up to 24 hours after interval training, whereas going for a jog burns almost NO calories after.
INTENSITY30!
So it’s time to burn calories faster and more efficiently, improve endurance, and build strength with Definition Fitness Personal Trainer Scott Winters and the heart-pumping INTENSITY30 workout program!
Utilizing the principles of high intensity interval training (H.I.I.T.), INTENSITY30 is a fast paced 30-minute, one-on-one workout session which incorporates 30-second drill combinations that include weighted squats, full-body resistance combinations, BOSU-based drills, heavy plyometrics, among other techniques, with 30-second recovery periods between each drill.
“HIIT is considered to be much more effective than normal cardio because the intensity is higher and you are able to increase both your aerobic and anaerobic endurance while burning more calories and shedding the fat.”
To be cleared for this special program, your max, resting, and target heart rate will be assessed prior to beginning the program; your heart rate will then be monitored throughout the 30-minute workout with your target heart rate always in check. A heart rate monitor is strongly recommended (for the most accurate workout), but not required.
IT’S A HEART-PUMPING TIME THAT WILL PUSH YOU TO YOUR LIMITS!
Here is a quick and easy recipe for chicken stir-fry peanut sauce that I found and its so good, if you can have peanuts and you like your veggies! You can put this over a little rice pasta, spaghetti squash, brown rice, or with veggies by themselves. Try it out and let us know what you think or share some of your favorite recipes with us!
First make peanut sauce set aside.
Peanut Sauce
6 TBS Soy Sauce (low sodium *I like Braggs Liquid Amino Acids)
6 TBS Almond Butter
3 TBS Honey
3 Cloves of Garlic
Pinch of Ginger
Cut chicken up in chunks and stir fry in olive oil or coconut oil until no longer pink. Set aside.
Cut up your favorite veggies…squash, zucchini, broccoli, mushrooms etc. and stir fry in remaining oil if you have any. Once veggies are cooked to a crispy liking add in Chicken and Peanut Sauce. And for extra crunch throw in a pinch of sunflower seeds!
And Enjoy!!
My name is Scott Winters and I’m the new kid on the block at Definition Fitness. I am a certified Personal Trainer through the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), and also a certified Spinning Instructor (Mad Dog Athletics). I happy to report that I most recently received my Sports Nutrition Specialist accreditation through the ISSN. There are three important components to essential and balanced fitness: 1) strength training, 2) cardio training, and 3) nutrition. I consider my fitness credentials to encompass these three vital components and have worked with determination to reach this fitness “trifecta”.
A little about me: I was raised in the Midwest, but since 2000 I am definitely a transplanted Floridian. All of my immediate family resides in Florida also. Mostly recently, I was a Personal Trainer and Group Fitness Instructor at The Fitness Center at Florida Hospital in Orlando, FL. There I worked with a wide array of clients age-wise, fitness abilities, special conditions, whom collectively provided me invaluable knowledge and experience. I also led 5 group fitness classes a week, bootcamps and leg sculpting classes, and I loved everyone minute of it. Prior to that I owned my own successful personal training studio just east of downtown Orlando, and conducted Spinning classes there also.
I am lucky to come from an athletic-minded family where tennis, baseball, cycling, track and field, were a big part of my upbringing. Ever since high school (quite a long time ago), I have been involved in some type of sport or athletic activity whether that be my daily workouts or Spinning sessions, participating in an occasional 5K or 10K run, cycling an organized 28 or 42 mile ride, a couple rounds of tennis, my annual ski trips, or just rollerblading along a rails-to-trails. This all has followed me through my lifetime; fitness, health, and nutrition have been a passion of mine for as long as I can remember. I am grateful I am doing something I love as a profession, and I thankful that I am able to help my clients push their limits and reach their goals for a fitter life both mind and body. It’s SO much more than just lifting weights and running the treadmill, and I look forward to continuing to lead and inspire my clients here at Definition Fitness.
Introducing our “Workout in the Park” series… tune in to our YouTube channel where we will be showing 1 new video every 2 weeks so you can exercise while your kids play in any park or travel out of town on vacation. No excuses this summer!
Join us Monday morning at 9 am for a group workout in the park behind Definition. We will meet in the gym and then all head out together. All are welcome to attend and it is only $15!
If the big group workout doesn’t sound like your idea of a good time, then you can still schedule a regular workout with your trainer!
Please call ahead to sign up- 398-6442. Hope to see you there!
