Objective: To determine the comparative effect of sports massage, active recovery, and rest on promoting blood lactate clearance after maximal anaerobic (supramaximal) leg exercise.
Design and setting: A counterbalanced experimental design with repeated measures was used. The repeated measures were the three treatment conditions. The order of the conditions was determined by random assignment to a counterbalanced test sequence. All data were collected in the Human Energy Research Laboratory at the University of Pittsburgh.
Subjects: Ten male competitive cyclists volunteered for this investigation.
Measurements: Serial venous blood samples were drawn and analyzed for blood lactate concentration for each test condition.
Results: There were significant main effects for both absolute and relative values of blood lactate concentration between the three treatment groups and across time within groups.
Conclusions: After supramaximal leg exercise, active recovery produced significant decreases in both absolute and relative measures of blood lactate concentration when compared with the sports massage and rest conditions. No significant difference was found between sports massage and rest for either absolute or relative changes in blood lactate concentration.