Benefits Of Swedish Massage For Body And Mind

This article explains the many benefits of Swedish massage for the body. This manual therapy will help us to relax physically and mentally.

What Is Swedish Massage?

Swedish massage is one of the most used massage techniques in Europe and, as the name suggests, created in Sweden in 1830 by Henrik Ling, an expert in anatomy and physiology, as well as a gymnastics instructor at the Swedish War Academy Karlberg, being the creator of the famous Swedish Gymnastics.

Ling learned oriental massage techniques that she then combined with her anatomical and physiological knowledge, which served to create what is now known as Swedish massage and is considered the forerunner of Kinesiotherapy.

How Does It Work?

Swedish and deep tissue massage is based on the combination of five fundamental passages that produce the effects of elimination of toxins accumulated by tension in the muscles, improvement of blood circulation and, therefore, oxygenation of tissues. All this produces muscular efficiency and relaxation contributing psychic well-being and reduction of stress.

These Are The Five Main Movements Of Swedish Massage:

• Friction: Movements along the body in an upward direction. They allow relaxing the body and prepare it for the massage.
• Kneading: These manipulations of Swedish massage remind the movement of kneading the flour, and its function is to enhance circulation and loosen deeper tensions, also are very relaxing.
• Rollers: It consists of gently pinching the skin and climbing, for example, from the lumbar to the shoulder, as if we were rolling the dermis. It produces a relaxation of the outer layers of the tissues and a blood supply.
• Deep friction: movements in a circle that produce a relaxing and sedative sensation.
• Percussion: It is done with the palms of the hands cupped and gently. They rhythmically and softly pat on the back and extremities. This stimulates the nervous system and blood circulation, pleasantly toning the patient to help him get out of the relaxed state of Swedish massage in a pleasant and effective way.

Benefits Of Swedish Massage

Swedish massage produces multiple benefits for the body and for personal well-being. These are some of the most important:

• Soothes pains produced by contractures, muscle tension, dislocations, sciatica, joint stiffness, etc.
• It stimulates the blood and lymphatic circulation eliminating toxins and improving the nutrition and oxygenation of the tissues.
• Accelerates the recovery of sports injuries.
• Attenuates insomnia.
• Relax, calm the nerves and produce a sense of well-being.

Contraindications

Swedish massage has its contraindications or reasons to refrain from receiving it, as in the case of recent wounds or scars, bruises and varicose veins in the areas to be massaged.

In case of arthritis also in the points of treatment, of thrombophlebitis and of osteoporosis. You also have to avoid it in case of fever and low or high blood pressure.

If you’re having any heart disease or suffering from infectious processes, make sure you don’t get Swedish massage in the areas to be treated.

How Is A Swedish Massage Session?

The Swedish massage can last from 30 to 90 minutes and is performed on a stretcher and in direct contact with the patient's skin. A massage oil is applied so that the sliding is friction-free, heating it beforehand in the hand so that the contact is pleasant.

Then the mentioned passes are combined in the areas that the masseuse and the client consider appropriate. The Swedish massage sensation should be basically pleasant although at some point it may be slightly annoying when working in painful areas, the sensation should not pass into pain.

And Finally…

The Swedish massage session is over, leaving the state of relaxation with the help of the percussion passes. The patient should be lifted slowly from the stretcher to avoid getting dizzy with the abrupt change in blood pressure and going from the state of muscular relaxation to activation.

Heart Rate Variability: How It Affects Sports Performance And Health

Cardiovascular training reduces the resting heart rate and measuring it upon awakening has always been a method to evaluate the response to training. A higher HR at rest repeatedly can be a sign of overtraining or any other health problem. Given that FC is very labile and depends on many factors, it is not the best parameter to evaluate adaptation to training. The Variability Heart Rate (VFC) or Heart Rate Variability (HRV), unlike the FC itself, is a good parameter to evaluate adaptation to training and the degree of physical and mental well-being.  We mentioned it months ago when we talked about the parameters that evaluate performance but today we will go deeper into it.

In a healthy person, the beats occur with "apparent" regularity; if we palpate our pulse, we think that the beats occur rhythmically, but in reality, the time between one heartbeat and the next varies from beat to beat, but this variation is so small, of milliseconds, that it is impossible to perceive it. This "imperceptible irregularity" of the FC is the variability of the HR and can be measured at rest with any electrocardiographic record. Currently, many pluviometers have the software to measure it and there are mobile phone applications that, linked to a chest strap, get the VFC. This allows it to be measured easily and reliably during sports practice.

The HR and the VFC are related to each other and are the result of the balance between the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic one at heart level. In a situation of physical and mental rest, activation of the parasympathetic system that reduces HR and increases HRV predominates. With exercise or stress, the sympathetic nervous system is activated which is what prepares us for action and flight, increasing FC and reducing HRV. The sympathetic system triggers very quickly in the face of any physical or mental stress, preparing the body immediately for the stimulus to face a danger and preserve survival. This is good and necessary but to a certain extent. Currently, we are not hunters in a jungle, and we live in civilisation (although sometimes we are uncivilised) so often the organism interprets as threat situations that really are not and then stress, anxiety, etc. appear.

HRV does not have a "normal" value but rather each person has their "personal variability" that varies according to their physical or mental state and therefore, it makes no sense to compare our HRV with that of another person.

Practical Utility Of HRV In Sport

Currently, it is not only used in high-performance centers and elite athletes to assess adaptation to training and prevent or detect overtraining. Since there are pulsimeters and mobile phone applications that allow it to be obtained easily and reliably, it is increasingly used in sports at the amateur level.

Training well done and assimilated increases and helps to Maintain Heart Rate Variability (HRV), both at rest and in exercise, three weeks after its onset. On a practical level, we could apply the VFC to our sports routine in the following way: In a week we will take three measurements of the HRV at rest and three during the exercise, and we will obtain an average of the three values of rest and exercise. Every three weeks, we will repeat these measurements and compare them with the initial reference values. If the values, both at rest and exercise, increase progressively every three weeks, it means that our performance improves. A reduction in HRV indicates that we are not responding adequately to training and that we may be overtrained or have a physical or mental health problem.

Usefulness OF HRV In Medicine And Psychology

The World Health Organisation (WHO) defines a Healthy Lifestyle Solution as "A state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not only the absence of disease."

There are studies that have shown a close relationship between this global well-being and the variability of HR. High HRV values are related to states of the physical, the mental and social well-being of the individual, that is, health, as defined by WHO.

In this line, HRV is used to evaluate the prognosis and effectiveness of treatment in different organic and mental diseases. In psychotherapy centers to combat stress and anxiety, it is used as a method to evaluate the effectiveness of the therapy. An increase in HRV throughout follow-up implies a good response to therapy and a better prognosis.

The Third Brain

If someone began to doubt my sanity when I spoke of the existence of a second brain in the intestines in the article on probiotics, when I told him that we have a third brain in the heart, he would start thinking that I would boil and like hallucinogenic mushrooms. Well, my friends, I do not take drugs or lose my mind. As unlikely as it seems, science has shown that we have a third brain in the heart. In the nineties, scientists in the field of neuroradiology discovered that the heart has sensory properties and a sophisticated network of more than 40,000 neurons to receive and process information from the outside and act before the cerebral cortex. The brain of the heart is the first to treat the information it receives from outside and "react". The "intelligence" of the heart is very fast, intuitive and practical because it does not go through the complex circuits of memory. Once the outside information is processed, it sends orders to the brain and the rest of the body in four different ways:

• Nervous impulses (neuron-neuron connection): The heart sends more information to the brain than it receives through neuronal connection and can inhibit or activate certain parts of the brain.
• Biochemical impulses (hormones): The heart produces hormones with effects at the level of the organs and the brain such as the atrial natriuretic peptide that ensures the hydroelectrolytic balance of the body and at the cerebral level, is a driver of motivated behaviour, helps to increase the motivation to reach our goals. It also produces oxytocin, the hormone of
• Electromagnetic impulses: The heart generates an electromagnetic field that wraps the body in 360 degrees with a range between two and four meters outside it and 60 times more powerful than the one generated by the brain. Feelings influence the quality of this field, positive feelings generate ordered waves and negative ones generate chaotic waves. It may seem like science fiction, but this magnetic field around people exist, has been measured and quantified in the laboratory. Surely more than once you have metaphorically used the phrase that someone transmits good or bad vibrations ... Well, it is much more than a metaphor, and it is a physical reality.
• Through the variability of CF we have talked about, the heart sends signals to the brain and the rest of the body. And this is why VFC has so much to do with our physical and psychic state. There are two patterns in terms of the graphic representation of the VFC. When the person has positive thoughts and enjoys well-being, the pattern of their VFC is of broad and regular waves. Physical or mental stress produces a disordered and chaotic pattern.

Physiological or Cardiac coherence is spoken of when all the physiological functions - respiration, digestion, hormonal function, etc. - and the brain waves are synchronised with the heart rate and its variability. In this state all the organic functions are developed harmoniously, being more efficient and efficient. The waves of brain activity are also synchronised with variations in heart rhythm, so that "the heart drags the head", the thought is more orderly and clear and has greater ability to make decisions, manage emotions and stress. This coherence can be acquired through meditation techniques or relaxation. And it is very important for the performance and various health conditions of the athlete since athletes put to the limit - and often surpass it - to our body and our mind. Meditation and relaxation not only gives us mental and organic benefits but also favours our athletic performance.

The popular phrase "think with the heart" has a scientific basis. And is that popular wisdom is very wise...

The Exercise Routines You Should Follow

If you do not take care of yourself more than before, getting fat will be inevitable. The good news is that this process can be mitigated (and a lot) through certain training sessions

If you have already overcome the barrier of 40, surely little by little you will realise that of showing heart and keep the line becomes increasingly difficult. It's not your imagination: the years, in general, do not come alone. They do it accompanied by kilos of more, of love handles and a gut that begins to bloom. Despite eating the same thing and following the same strategies, at some point in the 40s or 50s, most people run into a frustrating reality: the numbers on the scale are increasing.

In this process, the rise of a sedentary lifestyle, bad diets, and hormonal decline intervene, but above all, it influences the decrease in metabolism and the loss of muscle mass in a long process known as sarcopenia. This means that if the person has less muscle your body will consume less glucose and, consequently, this will become fat that will be stored in different parts of the body. In other words, if you do not take care of yourself beyond your usual routine of youth, getting fat will be practically inevitable.

Using the High-intensity interval training (HIIT) method you not only do more exercise in less time, but you prolong the calorie burn even after finishing it. Leaving aesthetics aside, these extra kilos increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer or diabetes. The good news is that this process, although it is not completely reversible, can be mitigated (and much) through a certain series of exercise routines.

High Intensity

Not everyone has time to perform a slow and constant training and even less taking into account that in the ages on which we are talking, family and work responsibilities reach their peak. Therefore, it is worth assessing commitment (body and soul) to the HIIT method, which is none other than training in high-intensity intervals and that surely has been the most popular trend in gyms during this 2017.

It consists of alternating short periods of maximum effort that alternate with others of less intensity to recover. In this way, not only do you exercise more in less time, but it also prolongs the burning of calories even after finishing it (since it speeds up the metabolism ).

The Bosu Ball

Maybe you've seen them in the gym, forgotten in a dusty corner or maybe being used by a monitor. But do not despair, you do not need excessive technical knowledge to take advantage of it. In particular, they are useful for toning the abdominal area. Yes, that part of your body where fat tends to settle. In essence, the bosu serves as a base to perform various procedures of exercises (including the typical abdominal), thus increasing the instability of them and with it the intensity of each movement due to the force that must be played to maintain balance.

The Method 60/45/20

As with HIT, the key to this training is intensity. This is a version of the tabata style intervals (perform an exercise for 20 seconds, rest 10 and repeat), in which there was not enough time for the heart rate to increase enough. According to its creators, it burns 100 to 140 calories per interval, which lasts only about two and a half minutes each:

• 60 seconds of burpees.

• Rest of 10 seconds.

• Striking with a jump for 45 seconds.

• Rest of 10 seconds.

• 30 seconds of mountain climbers.

• Repeat the interval 3 times.

Do Not Forget To Walk

Trends in the world of fitness come and go, but walking never goes out of style. Why would I do it? It is an exercise with very little collateral damage, it is easy to do and does not require any special equipment, beyond comfortable shoes.

A very common mistake: take care not only consists of doing cardio, especially taking into account the loss of muscle mass from 40

40 minutes of daily walk every day because it works wonders for your metabolism. We do not mean to go through the busy shopping streets and stop to look at a shop window, but to walk vigorously, with stride length and a stable speed.

Strength Training

Another veteran who never fails. People tend to forget that taking care of themselves does not only consist of doing cardio, and this is a serious mistake, especially considering the loss of muscle mass after 40. Whether you want to lose weight, build muscle or simply lift the bags of the purchase with ease (and to continue doing it when you pass to the third age), the strength training is essential. Try dumbbells, weights, machines, using your own body weight...

Put Your Legs Up

In the meantime, it's worth taking a break. The best way to do it is to put your legs up and support them on the wall. Ideally, place a cushion under the lumbar and maintain that position for at least 15 minutes without doing anything else. Just feel how your body reacts by improving blood circulation after exercise.

Which Exercise Is Best Suited To Work Each Muscle In The Gym?

A guide with the most traditional devices of the training centres to work the different muscular portions. As it is not always easy to differentiate all the available bodybuilding machines, it is normal that on the first day more than an inexperienced one is disoriented in the gym before the variety of devices. This can lead to confusion about which will be most convenient according to the objective sought.

Oriented to the "novices", here is a detailed description of the main options in the training centres and the muscular portion that is worked with each one, in order to reach a complete training.

1. Extension Of Triceps In High Pulley

It is a primordial variant to isolate the triceps. During the performance, its long portion, the vast external and internal muscle, as well as the anconeus, are worked.

An extension of the elbows is made, taking the handle of the pulley down, without taking off the elbows of the sides of the body and only mobilising the forearm. You should exhale at the end of the movement and slowly return to the starting position.

2. Quadriceps Armchair

Leg extension machine is one of the most classic machines for working the lower limbs. The effort is centered on the quadriceps.  The more inclined the backrest of the appliance is, the more the anterior rectus is stretched, one of the portions of the muscle in question.

For the execution, it is important to respect that the knees are aligned with the articulation of the machine, while the back must be supported on the backrest. Then, to lift the weight by extending the knees, they should end up parallel to the floor.

3. Abductors In Machine

The adductor works in all its parts: major, middle, minor, pectineal and internal rectus, all muscles located on the inner side of the legs.

The correct way of execution is the following: the hands to the seat, supporting the lumbar area in the backrest, once the thighs are joined, the position must be held for a few seconds and slowly return to the initial position, without sudden movements and conserving all the way back your back well-supported on the machine.

4. Curl Biceps Scott

Arm exercise in which, as its name indicates, the main muscle worked is the biceps. It also demands the effort of the anterior brachial during the movement and, to a lesser extent, the long supinator and the pronator round are worked.

5. Static Rowing

It is an aerobic activity that also allows performing a very complete force work, involving both upper and lower limb muscles. Arms, back, shoulders, core, and legs are involved in the exercise. For example, it includes, among others, the quadriceps and tendons of the hamstrings, the deltoids and pectorals, the trapezius and the rhomboids and the iliopsoas or flexor muscles of the hips, plus the flexors of the fingers and muscles of the wrist.

For its execution, it is important to position the back, without arching the column excessively. It is also essential to always try to keep the elbows as close to the ribs as possible and maintain correct synchronisation between legs and arms when pushing.

At this point and as a complement to the upper train, a variant of pectorals can be included, working on the bench with barbell or dumbbells. In this case, for the execution will be essentially the separation of hands corresponding to the width of shoulders and lowers the bar to the chest.

6. Climber

Also called a step machine, it concentrates work in the lower train, especially in legs, buttocks and twins.

It is not a recommended option for beginners, but it is more useful for people with certain previous training who want to work those muscles while burning some calories.

7. Fixed Bicycle

While it does not offer the same benefits as running, the main advantage of the bicycle is that the joints do not suffer impact during the execution. As a variant, you can pedal stopped to tone your legs more. Obviously, they benefit from thighs, glutes, and calves, working also arms, shoulders, and abdominals.

It is very useful for people who are just starting to train, for older adults and for individuals with excess weight, because they can achieve a good increase in heart rate in a short time, in addition to the caloric expenditure made.

8. Tape

The most popular of all aerobic machines allow running or walking, simple activities to keep fit. Although it has the disadvantage that it can produce a high impact on the joints, generating damage by prolonging the routine over time.

At the margin of each exercise, a registered exercise professional Claudia Lescano, graduated in physical preparation and high performance, points out that the main thing is "not to kill oneself" at the first time: "The training process must be  adaptive and superior, always progressively, carefully and supervised by professionals, "he said.

He added: "When you go to the gym the first thing is to look for a coach or instructor to advise you on the correct use of the devices because as we all have different lengths of legs, arm or trunk, it is very important to adapt the position in which we find, otherwise injuries may appear."

Once the machine is adjusted, the professional determines the load -an assessment that will be subject to physical conditions, the inclination, the number of repetitions and series. "Then you should ask what the areas you want to work in are. And you should correct the time you inhale and exhale," Lescano concluded.