Massage doesn’t just make muscles feel better, it makes them heal faster and stronger

Massages feel good, but do they actually speed muscle recovery? Turns out, they do. Scientists applied precise, repeated forces to injured mouse leg muscles and found that they recovered stronger and faster than untreated muscles, likely because the compression squeezed inflammation-causing cells out of the muscle tissue. This work offers a non-invasive, drug-free treatment that can help regenerate many types of tissues, and confirms a functional link between mechanotherapy and immunotherapy.