Why Hot Stones are great for sore muscles. Or…how to turn up your massage to 11!
How do Hot Stones enhance a massage?
To operate optimally, your body needs three things: space, movement, and blood. Massage brings all of these things, but when you add hot stones, you turn the blood circulation up to11, hearkening back to the famous words of Spinal Tap! And this is a very good thing. Heat from the stones brings blood immediately to the area.
How do Hot Stones improve blood flow and why is that a big deal?
Blood cells are responsible for nourishing, operating, and cleansing the body! By raising your body’s outside temperature with hot stones, your capillaries dilate, otherwise known as vasodilation. This enables a more powerful blood flow that sends away lactate and brings in healing nutrients, growth factors, and rejuvenating oxygen so muscles repair faster and work better.
When blood circulation is poor, oxygen and nutrients cannot reach tissues effectively, and you get stiffness and cramping. For example, if you work on a computer all day, with your arms out in front of you and your head forward, you probably begin to suffer from “tech neck” and start to feel sore in your upper shoulders and back.
Your traps and rhomboids get overstretched, and over time they become weak, then get tired and grumpy. Weak muscles need more oxygen to work. Hello, hot stones! More oxygenation increases muscular energy. More energy reduces fatigue and helps to repair damaged muscle fibers faster.
How do Hot Stones relieve pain?
Hot stone treatments are quite wonderful for people who have chronic pain, like arthritis or fibromyalgia and help in three ways.
Heat from the stones produces extra signals in skin receptors which travel along different nerves than pain signals and get to the brain faster overriding some of the pain signals.
Hot stones are comforting and soothing and relax the whole nervous system which allows the brain to put out more endorphins! And who couldn’t use more endorphins??
Joints react wonderfully to hot stones too. Heat encourages synovial fluid to be released from the cartilage, which improves joint mobility, so people experience greater range of motion with less pain.
What else can Hot Stones do?
And of course, hot stones straight up loosen your muscles, reducing spasms and tension, which means I can work deeper into the muscle with less pressure because they are already more supple. And even though your skin will cool down, the heat permeates the muscle and the effects will last for much longer than your appointment! Plus, let’s face it. Hot stones just feel amazing!
Are you ready to turn it up to 11?
Read more here: https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/MediaLibraries/URMCMedia/noyes/migrated-media/PT-Blog-April_1.pdf
