Massage Therapy for Athletes

As an athlete, there is need for the body to recover after it has undergone intense stresses during sporting events and it’s no different for track and field athletes. During the national championships held over the weekend, the Belize Track Club provided massage therapy for the athletes as they prepared for the track and following their events. News Five spoke with Massage Therapist Viviani Tillett, who resides in the U.S., but took the time out of her vacation to provide the much needed services.

Viviani Tillett, Licensed Massage Therapist New York

“Massage is a key part of helping to prevent injury and to encourage the athletes to stretch so that they can be in tune with the body and feel where certain tensions are and where they need to focus on.”

Paul Lopez Reporting

There was a bunch of athletes over the weekend, who after competing in their respective activities, were assisted off the track and place on the massage table. But even before the athletes were engaged in the activities, they got warm up session.

Viviani Tillett

Viviani Tillett

“We used some salts and stuff like that to help warm up the tissue. So before they run, we try to wake up the tissue from being in a relaxed state. We don’t want to relax the muscles cause it can cause cramps and stuff like that. So we just want to walk it up to get prepared for the activity and then after, we quickly encourage the muscles to loosen up because it is activated so we want to get the muscle to lengthen to be back to that relaxed state and stuff.”

Viviani Tillett is a New York State Licensed Massage Therapist who speaks about holistic massage being better than using medications. It also helps with circulation.

Viviani Tillett

“My body is a hospital. My body knows how to heal, my body knows how to respond to things and recognise things that don’t belong there and things like that. Some of them were feeling lightheaded because there is a rush and there was a depletion of oxygen so what I was also doing was to encourage circulation to help them to breath and relax because their body was distressed. So I encouraged them to relax and breathe into it, re-center themselves. One of the athletes, he was feeling very dizzy so I prevented doing a lot of rocking cause that would make you feel more dizzy. So I tried to have him focus on his feet and I started massaging on his feet and then his breathing started to slow down. And then when I noticed the difference in breathing, then I went to his head and got him to relax and he felt great after. One of the other athletes, he was feeling numbness in the legs so I did some vibration techniques to stimulate the nerves to get him to get that sensation back. And also apply ice because when there is injury, you’re not supposed to apply heat because it makes it more inflamed. So ice will help stop the swelling and stuff like that.”

Paul Lopez for News Five.