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Background
Massage is often applied with the intention of improving flexibility or reducing stiffness in musculotendinous tissue. There is, however, a lack of supporting evidence that such mechanical effects occur. The purpose of the study was to investigate the effect of massage on the passive mechanical properties of the calf muscle complex.

Methods
Twenty nine healthy volunteers aged between 18 and 45 years of age had their calf muscle compliance and ankle joint dorsiflexion range of motion (ROM) measured using an instrumented footplate before, immediately and 30 minutes after a ten minute application of deep massage or superficial heating to the calf muscle complex. Repeated measures analysis of variance was used to determine differences between testing sessions and the types of intervention. Reliability testing for the measurement method was conducted using analysis of variance both within and between testing sessions.

Results
There was no significant change in calf muscle stiffness or ankle dorsiflexion range of motion with or without the application of calf massage. Inter- and intra-session reliability were very high, ICC > 0.88 (p < 0.001).

Conclusions
Although individuals’ perception of a change in tissue characteristics following massage has been reported, there was no evidence that soft tissue massage led to a change in the passive mechanical properties of the calf muscle complex. The findings of this study suggest that the use of massage to increase tissue flexibility prior to activity is not justified.

Quote from: adarqui on December 15, 2015, 12:10:41 am

Life: Haircut

- worst hair cut ever...
- had to ask my dad to attempt to salvage it otherwise i was going to shave my head, he worked some serious magic

lol.. a PR no one ever wants to make. Glad you bounced back from it after your dad did his best surgery to salvage the situation . .haha.

Saw my physio today. Shoulder is good to go. Onto a maintenance plan now which is just to keep the joint loose and supple and gradually build back into things like dips etc. Pretty stoked about that.

Got him to have a look at my knee. He thinks I have a minor medial meniscus tear and some cartilage damage under the knee cap. No real treatment or further investigation required but main priority is to make quad/it band as supple as possible and loosen up calf as it's probably at an all time high of tightness. Need to avoid full compression of the joint, i.e. kneeling and sitting back on ankles which is exactly what I do all the time. It's the seating position we use in Hapkido which is the same as the Japanese seiza. If it gets worse (more pain and inflammation) I can get a scan with a view to a scope. Hoping like hell to avoid that.