{"id":3261,"date":"2021-05-19T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-05-19T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.amt.org.au\/?p=3261"},"modified":"2021-05-19T21:35:42","modified_gmt":"2021-05-19T11:35:42","slug":"focus-on-research-may-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.amt.org.au\/index.php\/2021\/05\/19\/focus-on-research-may-edition\/","title":{"rendered":"Focus on Research – May Edition"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by Rebecca Barnett<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It may not surprise you to hear that I read a fair amount of research on an ongoing basis. But not all of this research is specifically about massage therapy so these quarterly blog updates are a bit of a personal godsend, focusing my mind on familiar home turf in a way that is entirely gratifying and inevitably exciting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Checking in on published massage therapy research at least every quarter also gives me a sense of trends and patterns. I am happy to confirm that the strong emerging 2020 trend of research devoted to massage and constipation continues apace, apparently undeterred by the ravages of COVID-19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My prize this quarter for the weirdest study that PubMed throws up when you search for massage therapy goes to:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Effects of Substitution of Corn with Ground Brown Rice on Growth Performance, Nutrient Digestibility, and Gut Microbiota of Growing-Finishing Pigs<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I hope all those piggies enjoy their brown rice and massages. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Too Much Sport Is Barely Enough<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The standout piece for me from this past quarter is a narrative review that nearly made my head come off (insert a million exploding head emojis please Ed). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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(Ed: I hope many heads exploding out of one head will suffice?)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

It features the kind of indepth mechanobiology that is extremely hard for a bear of very little brain like me to fully comprehend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I give you:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sport Performance and Manual Therapies: A Review on the Effects on Mitochondrial, Sarcoplasmatic and Ca2+ Flux Response<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, before you are put off by the terrifying title, let me explain in plain English why this paper should matter to us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I was studying massage in a former century known as the 20th, we were taught that certain types of massage strokes evoked very particular physiological effects and we were meant to know them. At the time, it didn\u2019t occur to me that what I was learning was essentially based on zero actual evidence. It was taught with conviction so I guess I naturally assumed it was true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was also taught about massage for particular contexts, such as sports, which leaned pretty heavily on a \u201cdifferent strokes for different effects\u201d narrative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An entire industry has grown up around sports massage. It\u2019s based on a lot of assumptions about the benefits of massage for sporting\/athletic performance. And entire pre, post and inter event protocols have also evolved, many of which may well be biologically plausible but are not necessarily supported by evidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what the authors of this narrative review propose is that we investigate the cellular influence of mechanical stimuli to determine not only what the implications are for athlete performance but also which kinds of manual input are appropriate at different stages of training.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c \u2026 knowing the mechano\u2013chemical effects of manual techniques could allow therapists to accompany and support athletes in the best possible way during every stage of their training.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This means actually unpicking the specific cellular effects of particular manual techniques so we stop talking about \u201cmassage\u201d in general terms and start thinking about particular strokes\/pressure etc. Dan Wonnocott toured this kind of terrain from a neurophysiological perspective in his excellent and entirely accessible presentation at AMT’s Virtual Conference 2020, which you can enjoy again:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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