Self-Massage for Athletes

I'm a very active 40ish year old athlete with some chronic muscular issues, particularly in muscles on one side of my lower back and hip-- a very common injury, I'm finding.I found the book to be a very general introduction to massage, along with some general persuasive information regarding the efficacy of massage for athletes. But, in the end, the book is just too simplistic to really have much to offer. I found the many, many full-page images of naked models superfluous; while the images are tasteful, they don't impart any practical information. Overall, the book has the look, feel, and content of a coffee table book.There are far, far better sources for dealing with massage as therapy for sore/injured athletes-- get just about any book specifically on trigger point therapy, and you'll have a far more functional resource for actually dealing with muscular pain/weakness.If I had it do over, I'd still have the money I spent on this in my pocket. I couldn't, in good conscience, even give this book away to someone who was in actual need of muscular therapy. Unless you're interested in a very cursory introduction and persuasion to the idea that rubbing your muscles if they're sore can help reduce pain, I'd look elsewhere.

Good if you're new to self-massage and need to learn basics. Not so good if you already know what you're doing and are looking for more in-depth information.

I don't know why there are so many 5-star reviews. This book is too gerneral and i found it impractical to massage just based on its instructions. it doesn't explain the techniques in details and you won't learn to use your hand as a massager from this book. if you're a serious athlete, you may find it disappointing.

I found this book to be a waste of money. Unfortunately, that's all I can really say about it. The self-massages didn't help me at all.

1/2 the book was spent on benefits of massage. 2nd 1/2 was rather superficial. Not much depth.

I found the book to be just too general, stressing the value of the massage.

I got this book because I am in Ironman training and have been nursing some injuries. This book not a magic pill, but it does help.The book is gorgeous and easy to read. The pictures are very nice, nothing is left to guess from the explanations. Most of the important content is in one chapter. The rest is trying to convince you that it's a good thing to do, and later in the book there's a couple of chapters that include some nice accessory information.There are a lot of statements that could be considered "kooky," but if you are buying a book with this title you are already open to such ideas. Thankfully, the author didn't mention the obvious talk that some other reviewers and friends may joke about. There are also a lot of statements made that make you want more information as to where the source came from, how it came about, etc. While the author does have an extensive bibliography, that is not enough. I do not want to go searching everywhere to explain every sentence in the book. If you're going to make a claim that XX has been shown to be good for YY, tell me more than just that statement. In addition, the chapter with accessories, while nice to have, does not explain very much about each accessory.For some reason - probably because of no details on the remarks as stated above, the structure of the book and the short chapters - this book read a lot like a college paper. Overall it's good information to have, and I'm going to be using this in my training. I haven't read this type of information before. I probably could've gotten the same thing in an active.com article though. If it existed.

Every so often I have something pointed out to me that is so obvious, I wonder why I didn't think of it myself. Such is the case with this book. In it, author Rich Poley gives everyone tips on self-massage.The book is broken down into three sections. The first parts lays out the argument for why self-massage is important. Second, he gives us a detailed guide on how to self-massage. Finally, he looks at some related fields like acupressure, trigger points, and tools.The heart of the book is the second section. This part not only includes not only words but large black and white photos to show us just what he is talking about. This really helped me get a clear picture.I read the book last week in preparation for an Ultimate Frisbee tournament I participated in this weekend. Both evenings, I tried a little self-massage on myself. Granted, I'm still sore today, but I think I am less sore then I would have been. And all day long I was massaging my legs at work to help them recover. Frankly, I wish I had read and started using these techniques a few weeks ago so I'd be better at them by now.The only real flaw with the book is the author's tendency to overstate his case. In the first part, he sites several studies showing the benefits of massage, then goes on to state that this probably applies to self-massage. While I tend to agree with him, that didn't sit quite right with me. In another place, he discusses the ways a shower can be a massage parlor. Again, it is generally good advice, but I did roll my eyes when he said a razor can give a massage to your face or legs. Maybe it's just me, but that just doesn't hold true. I even tried his mental techniques, but that just made me even more uncomfortable that I was running a sharp object over my face.While the book is obviously aimed at athletes, the message really applies to anyone.There is little in this book that is truly earth shattering. But the principles and ideas are good and well worth considering. I know I will be making them part of my normal workout routine.

Very disappointed by this book. As a previous reviewer noted, it just seems to tell you that massage is great. It lists reasons why as being feeling good, better recovery, etc., but I would have appreciated a bit of an explanation as to why. The first chapters are entirely useless as they serve only to repeat, in slightly different words, what a great thing massage is. The second half of the book, demonstrating the self-massage techniques, is equally useless. As the book itself tells us, massage is intuitive, you just rub and squeeze your muscles in different ways. With this in mind, there is little this book can teach us. I felt very cheated that of the 7 massage steps, steps 4-6 are just developments of 1-3, while step 7 (the biggest cheat of all) is the suggestion that we should dance as a form of self massage. I'm gutted that I paid money for this, more so that the autor is profiting from me. In retrospect I wish I had realised this before 1-click ordering!

The book arrived quickly and the price was OK. I was surprised that all photos are only in B & W, but then full colour would have cost more. Even so the photos do clearly show how to apply the particular massage techniques. I have not yet read a great deal, but it is written in a nice easy to understand way and seems to be a good addition to my library. Will update my feed-back once I've got so far.