Does Massage Help After Exercise?

It had previously been thought that massage aided muscle recovery by increasing blood flow and decreasing lactic acid in the muscles. There have more recently been several studies that have shown that massage does not increase blood flow, but actually decreases blood flow to muscles.
A new study in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise measured both blood flow and lactic acid levels after exercise of the forearm muscles and found massage massage decreased the blood flow and increased the lactic acid levels as compared to rest and active recovery.

As noted in the study this does not prove that massage is harmful, just that two proposed mechanisms to recovery do not occur. There very well may be physical and/or psychological mechanism that are beneficial. This will hopefully lead to more studies that can find
if there are physical mechanisms that occur during massage that aid in exercise recovery.

Massage impairs postexercise muscle blood flow and "lactic acid" removal.

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