There is so much information passed on by massage therapists to clients that doesn't have any basis in fact and this is one about massage removing lactic acid is one of my personal favorites.
Have you ever been told by your massage therapist to "drink plenty of water to help flush out the toxins that massage has just removed from your muscles"? If you've ever questioned your therapist about what exactly these toxins are you will undoubtably have been told "Lactic Acid".
Now let me get things straight, I'm not having a go at massage therapists, the problem is, most will just dutifully repeat what they have been taught in massage school without question. Fortunately a Queen's University research team has blown open the myth that massage after exercise improves circulation to the muscle and assists in the removal of lactic acid and other waste products.
"This dispels a common belief in the general public about the way in which massage is beneficial," says Kinesiology and Health Studies professor Michael Tschakovsky. "It also dispels that belief among people in the physical therapy profession. All the physical therapy professionals that I have talked to, when asked what massage does, answer that it improves muscle blood flow and helps get rid of lactic acid. Ours is the first study to challenge this and rigorously test its validity."
The belief that massage aids in the removal of lactic acid from muscle tissue is so pervasive it is even listed on the Canadian Sports Massage Therapists website as one of the benefits of massage, despite there being absolutely no scientific research to back this up.
Kinesiology MSc candidate Vicky Wiltshire and Dr. Tschakovsky set out to discover if this untested hypothesis was true, and their results show that massage actually impairs blood flow to the muscle after exercise, and that it therefore also impairs the removal of lactic acid from muscle after exercise.
This isn't to say that massage isn't beneficial, it plainly is, but as massage therapists we need to be providing our clients with information that is based on fact and not just repeating like parrots myths and misinformation.
And yes, in case you're wondering, it is a good idea to drink water after a massage, it helps to hydrate your soft tissues which have been manipulated during the massage.
This study was presented at the annual American College of Sports Medicine conference in Seattle, Washington May 27-30, 2009
