The benefits of a sports massage for runners

Hi all,

Whoever you goes out occasionally or are a serious marathon pace setter, then treating yourself to a sports massage can make all the difference to your jogging experience.

Having a regular sports massage can benefit your body no end. It can help you to recover from aches and pains and injuries that you inevitably pick up on your regular 10k route.

So, what is a sports massage?

Essentially, the treatment involves a series of techniques that a skilled therapist uses to work on the runner’s tissues and muscle fibres to return them to the same state they were in before they exercised. It is great for treating injuries as well as an excellent preventative treatment, perfect for balancing muscle and improving posture. Not only will it restore you to peak condition it will also leave you feeling great, too.

When should you have a treatment?

Either before or after a run is a great time for a sports massage, so don’t worry if you think a particular time is inappropriate. Even having one during an event is not unheard of.

As you prepare for a big running event – a 10k, half-marathon or full marathon, say – it is a good idea to visit your therapist and have a sports massage treatment to keep your muscles and body tuned up. It is certainly advisable to receive treatment immediately after the running event or at the latest, a few days later to ensure any aches, pains or injuries are identified and dealt with.

 Types of sports massage?

A pre-event massage – which helps to prepare runners for a competitive event – is brief and invigorating.

A post-event massage should be relaxing and its purpose is to decrease tension and muscle soreness by dispersing lactic acid and to reduce inflammation. 

What to expect from a sports massage

Once the therapist has determined your exercise history and experience, your range of movement and flexibility, the treatment will begin by warming up your muscles. This can be done through gentle manipulation and the use of oils. Little by little, your therapist will work deeper and deeper into your muscles, starting at the surface.

Health benefits and resulting well-being

A sports massage for runners will help to relax tense muscles and also helps to remove minor scar tissue between muscles and muscle fascia, which can all restrict your movement and range of motion. In effect, it helps to reduce the pain you experience after an intensive run – helping you to recover quicker and get back out running once more.

Now that you have a bit of information why not to try it? The benefits are endless. 

Run and smile!

History of Running

The history of running is a bit “hit and miss” really. It would seem as if recreational running and jogging just popped up out of nowhere in the last 20 or 30 years and took the world by storm.

Although there are huge gaps, running appears all throughout history - usually as a means to an end. For example, in persistence hunting ancient man ran hundreds of miles tracking and hunting for food.

But where and when did we start to run for sport and recreation?

History of Running - The Games

The Gods and Goddesses were the focus for the ancient Greeks and they began the Olympics Games around 2,700 years ago in honour of the God Zeus. At the beginning, the games were only a day long and one of the first recorded events was a sprint from one end of the arena to the other.

The Games developed into a four day event and sports such as the Javelin and Discus were added, these games inspired the modern day Olympics which began in 1896

Local competitive running, especially in rural areas of Europe, are also likely to have been started as a result of religious festivals.

These festivals such as the Tailteann Games in Ireland were originally “funeral games” held in honour of the deceased and the Goddess Tailtiu. Traditionally they were held in late summer and would finish on Lammas eve (1st August).
All kinds of local sports were included (tug of war, wrestling) but they also included a few running events, one which was long distance.
There is debate on when these games started - some proposing 1829 BC, others as late as 632 BC. The Gaelic Athletic Association revived the games in 1924.

Fell running across the moors and hills of northern Britain is another example of Religious festival games, for example, in harvest and Easter celebrations. The first recorded fell run took place in Braemar, Scotland in 1040 AD and was organized by King Malcolm Canmore. 

In more recent centuries the festival games have been revived by the community fairs which have become popular again.

 History of Running and Jogging:

Here we encounter another gap in the history of running and we now shoot forward to the 16th century when the term “jogging” was starting to be used and swordsmen were using running and jogging as a training technique. This was very much in the realms of the upper classes and the nobility.

This is probably the beginning of running as a fitness tool.

Coming a bit more up to date to the late 19th and 20th century, running and jogging were becoming increasingly popular in training regimes as athletics became a Professional sport.
In the USA jogging was known as Roadwork and was made popular by Boxers as part of their training techniques.

History of Running - Social and Fitness

So what kicked off the sudden rise in popularity of recreational running during the last 40+ years? 

Well, it is credited to New Zealander Arthur Lydiard who formed the Auckland Jogger club, for social and fitness running (although I’m not sure how they get it down to one man!).

In 1962 an American named Bill Bowerman went running with Lydiard in New Zealand and then went home to the USA and published a book called “Jogging” in 1966 which was very successful and the running craze began.

It is recorded that 25 million people took up social and fitness running in the USA during the 1970’s, included in that count were the actor Clint Eastwood and ex American president Jimmy Carter.

The running boom in America is also said to have been made popular by the Olympic Marathon win of American Frank Shorter in 1972.
The 1896 Olympics is directly responsible for the beginning of the Boston Marathon, apparently a group who had been to see the Games were so impressed with the marathon that they decided to hold a marathon race every year.
The Boston Marathon has become one of the most prestigious races in the world today; it started with just 18 entrants in 1897, it now attracts over 20,000 entrants every year.

In the UK running came hot on the heels of the fitness and aerobic craze of the 1980’s. Since then there has been a steady increase in the number of local running clubs and events. 

The media coverage of events such as the London Marathon has brought running into everyone’s homes and the added incentive of running to raise money for a chosen charity is certainly an important part of modern day recreational running.

Barefoot Running

The latest running phenomena, barefoot running, takes us full circle back to the beginning of running history when our ancestors ran hundreds of miles to hunt down their prey.

Assuming recent theories are correct, we have ran ever since we could stand up right and what the history of running shows us is that we never really give it up.
For me, as a 40 something, working class Londoner men, the best thing about running is the fact that it transcends age, gender and class issues that can clog up certain sports, as well as other aspects of daily life!
Running is truly something we can all take part in and makes for a healthier more balanced life.
 
The history of running is likely to be a long chapter in our civilization  and as long as we still have two legs to run on, I don't see it ever ending... do you? Run and Smile!

Tooting Bec Commom Parkrun

Hi there,

Summer is on the way (let's hope it is for real!). It was a beautiful sunny day. 

I started the day running the Parkrun 5K at Tooting Bec Common. I tried my best not be too competitive today. It should be just a training, where my main objective was just keep up in a nice pace. Let's not forget that I am training for next week Sutton 10K.

It was my second Parkrun at Tooting Common. I finished in 104th place and I was the 96th male out of a field of 364 park runners. I came 5th in my age category VM40-44 with a final time of 23 minutes and 44 seconds. I felt gutted! I know I told you I was trying not be too competitive... but when I saw I didn't break my PB (23:43) I said, why???? (laughing loads).

After the race, I went to meet other runners from Herne Hill Harries at the Tooting Bec Athletics track and we had a training session with our trainer Mark White.
We did two circuits of varying functional exercises and we also had some fun doing four bounds and a jump into the sandpit.

Run and smile!

Tooting Bec Common — the northern and eastern part of the commons — was within the historic parish of Streatham, and takes its name from the area's links to Bec Abbey at Le Bec-Hellouin in Normandy. At various points in history this common has been called Streatham Common, which causes some confusion with the open space a mile to the east of that name. The common is not immediately adjacent to the area now generally known as Tooting Bec.

During the 19th century, the commons at Tooting were divided by building of roads and railways — starting with the West End of London and Crystal Palace Railway line in 1855, and the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway line running north — south which opened in 1861 and was further widened in 1901 after this had become the main line to Brighton. The common today continues to be divided into multiple parcels by these busy transport links.

Tooting Bec Common, comprising nearly 152 acres (62 ha), was one of the first commons which the Metropolitan Board of Works took action to preserve following the Metropolitan Commons Act of 1866 when in 1873 it acquired the manorial rights for £13,798. In 1875 the MBW acquired Tooting Graveney Common of 66 acres (27 ha) for £3,000.

The road marking the boundary between the two commons (and the historic parish boundary between Streatham and Tooting) is called Doctor Johnson's Avenue. This was originally a country path leading from Streatham Place, and Doctor Johnson is reputed to have regularly walked here when visiting Hester Thrale.

Tooting Bec Common includes a number of formal avenues of trees — the first such avenue to be recorded was a line of oaks to commemorate a visit by Elizabeth I in 1600. With the loss of elms along Tooting Bec Road to Dutch Elm Disease, most visitors are now immediately aware of late Victorian era plantings of horse chestnuts on the boundaries, but there are some much older trees — notably the oaks parallel to Garrad's Road which are the successors to an avenue first recorded in the 17th century.

In the 1990s the junction of Tooting Bec Road and Church Lane was widened, encroaching on the common. A few metres of grass behind the railings of the former Tooting Bec Mental Hospital (redeveloped as the Heritage Park residential development) are now part of the common in exchange for the lost land.