Effects of traditional Thai massage on lactic acid removal and recovery after aerobic exercise

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to study the effects of Traditional Thai Massage (TTM) upon lactic acid removal and recovery after aerobic exercise. The samples were 57 male athletes, 18-28 years of age. The subjects were randomly divided into 3 groups: active recovery (AR) group, massage recovery (MR) group and passive recovery (PR) group, 18, 20, 19 persons, respectively. All groups were assigned to exercise by performing on a bicycle ergometer at the maximum oxygen consumption until the exhaustion. After exercise, in recovery period, AR group would have the active recovery by performing on a bicycle ergometer with continuous load at 30% of VO2 max for 30 min, MR group would get the TTM for 30 min, and the PR group would take a rest for 30 min. Blood lactate concentration [LA] was recorded at recovery periods at 0, 5, 10, 15, 20 and 30 min, while the heart rate, oxygen consumption, carbon dioxide production and respiratory exchange ratio were recorded every 30 secs for 30 min. The study of AR, MR and PR group, showed that the means of blood lactic acid during 30 min recovery were decreased at 5 min (10.73, 11.03 and 12.17 mmol/l), 10 min (9.11, 9.37 and 11.43 mmol/1), 15 min (7.56, 8.05 and 9.75 mmol/1), 20 min (5.95, 6.62 and 7.98 mmol/1) and 30 min (3.56, 4.95 and 5.98 mmol/1). In order to estimate the differences among the means and standard deviations, repeated measures of ANOVA were applied with post hoc - Bonferroni test. The results revealed that TTM significantly enhanced lactic acid removal and recovery than passive recovery or rest at .05 level.