Laurie's Blogs.
Jan 2025
Research into Effleurage
To go with this week’s Four Leg Rehab Minute, I decided to do a bit of a dive into the research around effleurage massage. This is what I found!
Monteiro Rodrigues L, Rocha C, Ferreira HT, Silva HN. Lower limb massage in humans increases local perfusion and impacts systemic hemodynamics. J Appl Physiol (1985). 2020 May 1;128(5):1217-1226.
Results showed that effleurage (5-minute durations) consistently evoked a significant (P < 0.001) perfusion increase in the massaged limb, also visible in the contralateral limb (not significant) independently from the orientation (variant) used.
Although brief and superficial, massage modified multiple components of cardiovascular integration, with cardiac, respiratory, and myogenic components appearing to play a major role in reestablishing distal microcirculatory homeostasis.
Carvalho FA, Batista NP, Diniz FP, et al. Repeated Massage Improves Swimmers' Perceptions during Training Sessions but Not Sprint and Functional Performance: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2023 Jan 17;20(3):1677.
Participants were subjected to three 12-min interventions (superficial effleurage or deep tissue effleurage) over a week between resistance and swim training and monitored regarding training load and perceptions.
After the intervention week we assessed: perceptive (well-being, heaviness, tiredness, discomfort, and pain), performance (sprint time, FINA points, and stroke characteristics), and functional outcomes (flexibility, squat jump, bench press, proprioception), in addition to athlete beliefs and preferences.
Although there were no effects after one week of intervention, the researchers found interesting changes after single massages during the studied swim training sessions for pain, heaviness, well-being, and tiredness. Massage improved perceptions of well-being, heaviness, and pain over the training sessions but had no effects on sprint and functional performance outcomes after one week.
Akramzadeh M, Hosseini SM, Zavieh MK, et al. The Effect of Single-Session Stimulating Massage on the Knee Joint Position Sense in Healthy Older Adult Men: A Randomized Crossover Trial. Int J Ther Massage Bodywork. 2024 Jun 13;17(2):4-11.
This study found 10-minutes of leg massage resulted in improvements on the joint position sense in healthy older adult men.
Wrap up
Effleurage is worth including in your manual therapy rehab programs.
That’s it!
Until next time,
Cheers!
Laurie