Massage for Bodybuilders - Your Ultimate Guide to Muscle Recovery

Building Muscle Through Hard Work & Massage

Building muscle is taxing, hard work, and it can even be expensive. There are so many different supplements, tools, and equipment you can purchase that are designed to improve your workout. You’ve probably spent a pretty penny on any number of these.

Most bodybuilders and weight lifters spend a lot of money on the latest fitness fads. Unfortunately, many don’t take into account the most useful products in regards to weight lifting. What is this little known bodybuilding secret?

Massage. 

A good deep tissue massage can aid anyone looking to build muscle, and a massage chair means that you can achieve that in your own home whenever you want. You may already know how great getting a massage can be for your muscle recovery and development, but if you're going to a therapist regularly, you're spending way more money than you should. Having a massage chair right in your home can save you thousands that you'd otherwise spend on getting to and receiving your massage.

We'll even cover the Top 5 Massage Chairs for Bodybuilders.

Weight Lifting & Massage

Now, massage doesn’t make muscle magically appear, but when used in tandem with a good weight lifting and diet regimen, massage can be a hugely beneficial tool to keep in your toolbox. Massage can help to remove lactic acid buildup from your muscles in addition to lengthening muscles similar to stretching.

Plus, it can help to minimize stress, prevent injuries, and more. Injury prevention alone is a reason to pursue massage regularly. At the start of your weight lifting journey, you may not be thinking about injury or disability, but it’s a real possibility. 

Taking every precaution to keep yourself healthy will ensure that your program is a successful one. So, include massage in your regimen of vitamins, good food, and workouts, and you’ll be well on your way to the physique you want.

Benefits of Massage

If you’ve been around MassageChairPlanet.Com before, you now that we widely celebrate the benefits of massage. It’s a well-known fact that massage can aid anyone. However, did you know that bodybuilders and weight lifters can benefit from massage even more? 

A regular massage can boost performance, improve your competitive edge by helping you reach your physical potential, and fight the negative effects of hard training, which can damage bodybuilding growth.

Massage can also help you gain greater muscle mass, develop a more proportional and symmetrical physique, and improve your performance on the stage.

There are so many benefits. Let’s dive into each one in-depth.

Range of Motion

When your muscles are stiff, you aren’t as flexible. This can lead to injury. Massage stretches your muscle fibers in order to improve tissue elasticity. Reduced tension can promote range-of-motion by stretching the sheath or fascia that surrounds your muscle fibers. Muscular scar tissue can also be softened through massage.

So when it comes down to it, lifting with tight muscles is not recommended. It can even be dangerous. Thanks to the stretch that massage offers, the tightness caused by overtraining, previous injuries, or trauma can be improved.

Recovery

When you damage muscle tissue massage can assist in the healing process by boosting the fiber permeability and opening microcirculation. A deep massage improves tissue permeability by opening pores, which allows fluids and nutrients to pass through efficiently. This also helps the body flush waste products, such as lactic acid, which builds up while training and hinders muscular contraction.

Massage therapy increases circulation. As a result, you can breathe easier and move more smoothly. Heavy training cycles produce microscopic damage, micro-trauma or tiny tears, to the muscle and fascial tissue. Increased blood flow that provides the necessary nutrients is required to repair that damage. Massage does this and has a great effect on lymphatic and blood circulation and waste removal. All of this leads to a quicker recovery and a faster return to training.

Remember that its’ during the recovery phase of training that strength adjustment occurs. In the ideal regimen, you train, rest and massage the muscle tissue to remove waste and provide nutrients, and these nutrients rebuild broken-down tissues to make them stronger.

Muscle Tone

With this increased circulation, comes improved muscle tone. Damaged or stiff muscles restrict circulation, which can cause diminished muscle tone. There are several massage chairs that provide compression and sweeping massages that aid in circulation by creating a pumping effect that creates a sort of a vacuum impression in the vessels. 

Pumping involves increasing the pressure at the front of the stroke which bolsters muscle tone by helping damaged and tight tissues get nutrients required for growth and repair.

Sports Injury Prevention

Getting a consistent sports massage can keep injuries from occurring while bodybuilding. When you’re feeling sore in a particular spot, you can even choose for the massage chair to focus on that area. There are even chairs that provide Sports Relief or Refresh programs.

Taking time in your chair, even for just 10 minutes between training sessions, can help your muscles to reset after a tough workout, which is crucial if you want to keep training hard without hurting yourself.

Psychological

If you’re preparing for a big event, getting a massage beforehand can help you to relax and focus. It can boost your confidence and reduce your stress, which can occur during your training. When you’re confident and relaxed before a competition, your performance will reflect it. 

If you find it difficult to relax, stress can get the better of you. With regular massage, you can learn to relax your body and mind, improving your performance.

Pain Relief

Pain is common for lifters, often a regular part of training. Strained muscles, injuries from some unfortunate machine accidents, overworking. It’s all very possible, if not inevitable. The good news is that you can lessen the damage with regular massage. Pain is designed to alert the body that something is wrong and attention is required. When you address the issue right away with massage and rest, you can prevent greater harm and ease discomfort. Massage can offer enormous benefits, especially much-needed pain relief and decreased long-term harm.

Sleep Improvement

As we know, sleep is a huge part of recovery. Massage promotes better sleep patterns, quality sleep, and a better quantity of sleep. This will help you to perform at your best. However, if your stressed or sore it can be difficult to fall asleep, which compromises recovery. Massage promotes deeper and longer sleep through enhanced relaxation and pain relief so that you can perform at your peak and enjoy a speedy recovery.

The benefits of massage in bodybuilding can help you gain greater muscle mass, develop your ideal physique, and improve your stage presence. When you’re investing in your body and workout equipment, don’t forget to bring home a massage chair that can attend to your body every day. Your muscles will thank you.

The Best Massage Chairs for Deep Tissue Recovery

When you're looking for a deep tissue massage that really gets into the muscle, you'll need at least a 3D massage chair. These chairs offer greater penetration from the rollers as they can move forward and backward from the track. You can also look at 4D massage chairs that use that technology combined with independent speed control to increase the precision of the massage.

When you're looking at specific models, our top-selling massage chairs for bodybuilders are: 

Infinity IT-8500

The Infinity IT-8500 massage chair is one of the best-selling massage Inversion therapy massage chairs we carry. In addition to providing a deep massage, the inversion therapy positions, which offer relaxation in parts of your body that the back massage roller can't reach, provides spinal decompression. This stretch can be especially wonderful after a day of working your back which puts a lot of pressure and weight on your spine.

The chair also offers Zero Gravity, spinal correction through the Tru-Grip V Stretch program, heat therapy, spot massage, and a built-in MP3 player.

Luraco iRobotics i7 PLUS

The Luraco i7 PLUS massage chair offers a medical-grade massage experience that was researched, designed, and built right here in America. This chair offers 3D massage technology, which even soldiers have enjoyed, as well as full-body heat, zero gravity, optional health monitoring features like a blood pressure reader, a stretch program, and Bluetooth speakers. 

This is an absolute fan-favorite among our customers and is one of the top-selling chairs year after year. When you want an incredible experience from your deep tissue massage chair, the i7 PLUS delivers.

Osaki OS-PRO Maestro

The Osaki OS-PRO Maestro massage chair offers 4D massage with rollers that are also heated. It also has an L-Track which means that the massage can reach down past your lower back to your glutes. The enhanced 4D L-track massage was created to massage wider, deeper, and more rhythmically than the conventional rollers.

The chair also offers space-saving technology, zero gravity, foot, knee, & calf massage, quick controls, iPhone/Android app controls, and HD Bluetooth speakers.

Titan PRO Jupiter XL

The Titan PRO Jupiter XL massage chair also offers 3D rollers with L-Track massage. It's also great for people up to 6'6". It provides two-stage zero gravity, space-saving technology, and dual-action foot massage. It offers that deep tissue massage you want and can be more comfortable for a larger user. Plus, it also provides the coveted Bluetooth functionality and of course heat.

This chair also has a Muscle Strengthen program in addition to Pain Relief, Circulation, and Stretch.

Human Touch Super Novo

Lastly, the Human Touch Super Novo massage chair provides both 3D and 4D massage programs, an L-Track, and you can control it through Alexa using the Virtual Therapist. This is a fantastic feature because you can go ahead and get comfortable and then just tell Alexa you want a massage.

Plus, it has an Altec Lansing Sound System, an extended foot, calf, & knee massage, Meditation programs with soothing sounds, Yoga Studio deep stretches, Bluetooth, App control, space-saving, zero gravity, and dual-lumbar heat. 

This chair is a 2019 new release and an incredible model with all the bells and whistles, especially that much needed deep tissue massage.

If you have any questions about which massage chair is best for you, check out our Massage Chair Buying Guide. Or you can reach out to our massage experts directly over the phone or through email at info@massagechairplanet.com.