At Therapeutic Bodywork, we believe in a holistic approach to wellness. While we work with clients in the massage room, we know that our bodies are like instruments; they need to be tuned and tended to. The body is multidimensional and complex, and its well-being depends on the interconnectedness between mind and spirit. Today, we want to talk about the physical aspects of health. Strength training is amazing at maintaining our bodies before and after a massage.

As massage promotes the relaxation and well-being of our muscles, it is essential to support our muscles with strength training. Weight training is fantastic and effective, but if you’re not into pumping iron—have no fear! There’s plenty of ways to incorporate strength training into your daily movement routines. Our faves include bodyweight exercises (lunges, squats, planks, and pushups), Yoga (try downward-facing dog, warrior pose, and tree pose), and Pilates. Even functional training, which trains the body using real-life applications (think lifting a gallon of milk or pushing a lawn mower) will work!

Here's what coupling strength training with massage does:

• Makes Muscle Tissues Stronger

  Strength training grows and thickens muscle fibers. When we do strength training exercises, microscopic damage to muscle fibers occurs. The body’s response to this damage is a repair process that leads to bigger and thicker muscle fibers—what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, and a massage helps the repair process along!

• Improves Muscle Coordination and Effectiveness

  When we practice strength training exercises, especially high-intensity resistance training, we’re challenging the responsiveness and efficiency of our muscle fibers. We’re enhancing our motor skills by improving our neuromuscular communication—basically the connections between our brain, spinal cord, and muscles become even more efficient.

• Promotes the Relaxation Response

  Strength training exercises help activate the body’s relaxation response by reducing muscle tension, increasing blood flow, releasing endorphins, and improving sleep. After a great massage, the effects are similar, leading to happy, healthy, and well-rested life.

• Improves Posture

  Done properly, strength training, particularly exercises which place importance on alignment, improves overall posture. Proper posture is critical to injury prevention, and optimizes the effects of a great massage session—the massage therapist can work on an aligned musculoskeletal system, allowing them time to focus on specific target areas.

• Increases Body Awareness

  Kinesthesia is the awareness we have of our body, and how it relates to itself, its movement, its force, and the space it occupies. Athletes, craftspeople, and others who have strong mind-body connections and physical skill sets have high levels of bodily kinesthetic intelligence. When we incorporate strength training into our wellness routine, we’re improving our bodily kinesthetic intelligence. And, having an improved awareness of our body will enable us to ask for what we need during our next massage!

Health is a process of growth and repair that relies on the interdependence of various practices, like massage and strength training. Our new location at Live Free Health and Fitness is the perfect place to help foster your wellness journey. When you come in for your next massage, swing by the gym to learn all about what they can offer to your health and wellness routine!