Sports Massage is a type of massage that is used to work on athletes of all levels of training from the weekend warrior to professional sports teams. People who do sports massage can be professional massage therapists or some athletic trainers may also do sports massage if it is allowed in their state licensing.

Sports massage is not a specific technique, but applying whatever type of massage that you know to athletes. It requires extra training in anatomy and physiology as well as working with injuries.
A sports massage therapist will need to have an understanding of how the body moves and works during for various specific sporting events.

Sports Massage can be applied:

• Pre-Event - Before the actual sports event to relax muscles and stimulate the nervous system for peak performance potential
• Inter-event- In between events in cases where the athlete needs to relax from one event and prepare for another, such as a track meet or swimming event.
• Post-Event- After the actual sports event to calm muscles and the nervous system to increase he athletes recovery rate
• Maintenance-Regularly scheduled appointments to deal with minor soft tissue problems that can occur during training and decrease an athletes recovery time, thus allowing them to rain harder and push themselves to new limits.
• Treatment-This will be massage sessions in response to specific injuries. Often times these injuries are minor and massage can help the athlete continue to compete while maintaining their peak performance potential. They can also be to help rehabilitate serious injuries that required a more traditional medical approach initially.