I ask this only because of what I’ve noticed of my own body.
I don’t work out at all, but ever since I was young I felt a need to massage my own muscles, sometimes vigorously. For example, when I massage my arms I dig “under” the various muscles of my arm and squeeze tangential to the apparent grain of the muscles, pulling the muscle fibers “out”. (It’s kind of hard to explain). After doing these little exercises my arm feels like it would if I had been lifting weights (which I don’t do often at all, but I think I know what it feels like). Despite being small and mostly thin, I’ve shown great success in arm wrestling. I’ve defeated fellows nearly twice my size who actually work out. I have this irrational feeling that I owe my success to my massage exercises.
Can anyone tell me if my theory is palatable? Have other people noticed this? What does the scientific community have to say?
oh my fucking godd mann this is the same thin ive been doing for years since i was young. Digging into the muscles in my arms( massaging) because it felt good. And i too arm wrestled all the athletes and beat them. People thought i just had some kind of natural strength.Its so weird because after i do it it feels like i just got done workng out!!
See myofascial release and trigger point massage therapy. Basically, this is a very focused variation on “deep tissue massage” that treats “trigger points”; areas deep within muscle that tend to cramp and restrict blood flow, resulting in a weakened muscle, and if not treated can result in irritation of the bursa (the structure that protects the connective tissues at the joints) which can further limit the strength of the joint and range of motion. So it isn’t so much that massage makes the muscle stronger as that it allows you to use the intrinsic strength of the muscle.
It should be noted that the sheer bulk of the muscle is not necessarily a good correlation of strength, especially the sustained isometric strength and flexibility required for wrestling as opposed to the “explosive” linear strength used in powerlifting. The relative proportions of Type I and Type II fibers and the strength of core and supplementary musculature contributes significantly to practical strength used in wrestling and other functional activites. Gymnasts, who are phenomonally strong for their weight, train almost exclusively using body weight type exercises and are almost without exception more wiry than bulky. Their ability to recruit the whole body musculature to perform feats like the iron cross rivals the difficulty of any other feat of strength.
Stranger