The Effect of Sports Massage on Hematological Parameters in Semi-Professional Male Runners

Introduction: Disorders of blood rheology have been reported as factors affecting the incidence of cardiovascular events and sudden death after exercise, and it seems that the recovery during or after exercise can improve cardiovascular risk factors, so the purpose of this study was to investigate the recovery effect of sports massage on hematological parameters in semi-professional male runners. Methods: In this quasi-experimental and applied study, from among the male semi-professional athletes of track and field (runners) in Fars province, Iran, 20 individuals were randomly selected and divided into two groups of 10 participants: control group and sports massage group. First, to investigate the study variables in the pre-test, the subjects’ blood samples were taken in 12 hours of fasting, and then in the match day, the two groups participated in a 1500 m run, and after finishing the match, the massage group did Swedish sport for 30 min and the control group ended their activity without recovery. After one hour, the post-test blood sampling was taken of subjects. In order to analyze the study findings, Paired sample t- test and independent samples t-test were used and the significance level was considered at less than 0.05. Results: The results of this study showed that the white blood cell levels in the sports massage group were lower compared to the control group (p=0.03), however there was no significant difference in the levels of red blood cells (p=0.93), hemoglobin (p=0.89), and hematocrit (p=0.88) of the control and massage groups. Conclusion: The results of the study showed that there is a significant difference between the two types of recovery (active and sports massage) in the variations of white blood cell, hemoglobin, and hematocrit.