You just finished up a a massage - and your therapists tells you to make sure you drink loads of water after, to not take a hot shower and to make sure you're careful with all those "toxins" in your body.
What does any of this mean? Is any of this true, or is there something missing here?
Let's look at 5 Massage Therapy Myths that you need to get over!
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Table of Contents
*Disclaimer*
What we discuss in the entirety of this post isn’t a substitute for medical advice – and is for educational purposes only!
Massage Therapy as a discipline is quaint.
Before we get into some myths, let’s quickly dive into Massage Therapy as a discipline.
I mean, thinking about it specifically, Massage Therapy is quite strange when it comes to how diverse it can be.
What I mean by this is that you can find Massage Therapists working in spas, medical clinics, hospitals, or perhaps even in your home (provided you enjoy mobile massage).
All these different locations that massage therapists work at mean that they’ll also have different types of patients.
Ones who only want relaxation massages, ones who have a complex neurological problem, ones that have terrible postural and movement habits and so much more.
It’s due to these differences in types of treatments that mindsets around ‘healing, treating and helping people’ are produced.
Essentially you get a different crowd of people who want different things depending on where you work. This has an influence on the mindset of massage therapists – making it easy to come up with different explanations for the same physiological phenomenon.
This is probably why some therapists will say you need to bathe yourself with Epsom salt to help with soreness, but if you ask me, I’ll say that’s a load of malarkey!
Without further adieu here are the 5 massage therapy myths you need to get over!
1. Do you have to be naked during a massage?
Short answer is no.
Long answer is still no, but you can be if you choose to – you’ll be draped regardless so that only the body part that’s being worked on at the moment will be exposed, while everything else is covered.
Most of the time I’m pretty comfortable with people coming in with just sports attire – and I work around that quite easily. Sports bras, tank tops, leggings, shorts, and that sort of stuff are all easy to navigate.
It just doesn’t look like the stereotypical massage you see in media and on television – it’s more like active work – whether it’s trigger point release, assisted stretching, joint mobilizations and sometimes even exercises!
At the end of the day, it’s all about your own comfort – NO therapist should push you out of your comfort zone when it comes to modesty and making sure you feel safe and heard.
2. Is a hot shower after a massage bad for you?
Ready for another mythbusters moment?
Should you take a hot shower after a massage? Right away, even thinking about this seems like it should raise concerns.
Maybe taking a hot shower isn’t a good idea because you’d be dizzy and the heat could make it worse? Or perhaps the act of showering itself wouldn’t be a good idea as you could suffer from a fall in a slippery environment.
Well apparently the reasoning is behind not taking a hot shower is because it can stir up inflammation in your muscles if they’re painful or even damaged.
Yeah, no – that doesn’t make any sense.
Unless you’re showering in scalding hot water – you’d be okay.
And what does this have to do with a massage anyway? You should have less pain and less inflammation after a massage, not more – unless someone’s hammering into you with a stupendous amount of strength.
So yeah, this myth is just wrong in so many ways.
3. Do you HAVE TO drink water after a massage?
Is it necessary to drink water after a massage?
No idea where this myth comes from – but I mean, it’s good practice.
Drinking as much possible water as you can, within reason – is a good solid habit to develop.
Having a glass of water after a massage is usually never a bad idea actually – perhaps if you’ve been talking a lot during the massage or sweating buckets, it’d be an even better idea. –
However, it’s still a myth that you NEED to, and definitely a myth that you’d be DEHYDRATED afterwards.
I mean, it’s not like we’re massaging the hydration out of you.
4. Does Massage Therapy release toxins in your body?
Toxins are defined as the following via biology dictionary: A toxin is a chemical substance which damages an organism.
A toxin may be as simple as an ion or atom which negatively interferes with a cell. A toxin can also be in the form of complex molecules such as the proteins found in snake venom.
It’s obvious that it’s possible that we can ingest toxins, it’s probable that it happens all the time – but with variably low amounts.
For example – we have cyanide – all the time, if you have apples often, you typically may have a bit in you!
Our bodies have adapted to and evolutionarily been equipped with defense mechanisms to deal with toxins – namely our liver and lymphatic system that filter out the crap in our bodies.
But massaging? Highly doubtful this would help much.-Massage can increase microcirculation in areas that you’re working on – but beyond that, there’s not much of a significant that occurs in that regard.
So if you find yourself in contact with poisonous agents, stick to calling poison control, and if you find that you need some “detox diets” or what not, a massage isn’t going to help with that.
Anyone else who tells you otherwise may be doing so without understanding the full story here!
5. Massage has to be painful to work. Right?
Do you need to feel pain during a massage for it to work?
Just like all of these videos lately, the answer has been typically no, not really, no.
Pain isn’t a requirement for a good massage – if anything, it’s the opposite.
Pain in our body is an indicator that there’s tissue damage of some sort – obviously this isn’t always the case but the response to this will be the same in your body nonetheless.
Chemical mediators will flood to the site to reduce pain and induce inflammation to quell any potential infectious threats and more.
This is because your sympathetic nervous system is being stimulated into its “fight or flight” mode when your pain alarms are going off in your body.
We want to promote stimulation of your parasympathetic nervous system – the part of your nervous system that’s responsible more for “rest and digest” – which typically doesn’t happen if your sympathetic NS is being stimulated.
Your body spends more time healing when your parasympathetic NS is active – so if your goal is to return to sport, return to doing what you love and whatnot, pain typically isn’t something you should have to push through!
What do you do when you start to feel random pains? I like to roll it out with a foam roller and a recovery ball, then run through mobility exercises. If that doesn’t seem to work out, then I’ll self-assess and strengthen!
That's all folks!
And that’s 5 Massage Therapy myths that you’ve hopefully got over!
There are dozens of more myths that likely will have to be covered in due time.
Until next time!
Need a little help?
Let’s say that doing it yourself doesn’t really work – that’s fine! Sometimes a little help will come along the way. You can always see a health care professional, wherever you are, and whether or not that’s a Registered Massage Therapist is up to you!
However, if you’re looking to have treatment with a health care professional about a pain problem or functional issue you have, and happen to live in the Greater Toronto Area, specifically Mississauga. You’re always welcome to come see me in person! You can book online with a click of a button!
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Richard Lam
Richard is the owner of Vital Wellness centre and practices as a registered massage therapist with a specialty in therapeutic massage, utilizing techniques including manual therapy, contemporary medical acupuncture and PDTR.
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