Squeezing out neutrophils and cytokines from mice legs. Just how I would want to spend my graduate studies.
With the usual caveat that this is a mouse model. When reading this you may think to yourself that if these folks had created this machine/methodology/verification on humans they would well & truly be billionaires. As things stand mouse athletes just don’t have the economic power to really drive much change in that market segment.
Anyhow, there has been over the past several years a colloquial belief that massage doesn’t provide any measurable recovery benefit. Except athletes kept asking, ‘Why the heck do I feel so much better, then?’ Maybe this work will start to close that cognitive gap.
There is no Training, Recovery tag. W’sup?
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W’sup?! 
I’ll take a huge helping of evidence - athletes & coaches finding benefit - over waiting for science to validate and attempt to explain mechanisms involved.
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I was a massage therapist in a other life (licensed and has a small sports massage business tho I no longer practice). At least from our schooling, it’s about promoting blood flow. All of our techniques and strokes push blood back towards to heart.
A lot of MT tools on the market miss the point bc they don’t properly warm the muscle up and this is why it ‘hurts’ to use it - think a roller or massage gun. They aren’t bad but you have to do very lightly then progressively get deeper on the same spot (5-10min continuously).
Also, our teachers said there is no real muscle loosening benefit unless you spend at least 5 mins in exactly the same spot. So a ‘fluff and buff’ massage feels nice and makes you very relaxed but does have virtually no benefit for direct physical recovery. A proper and long enough focused sports massage should be beneficial.
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