If you are someone who has to work a lot in a poor working posture or you have to be on your feet all the time,you most likely have muscle pain and muscle stiffness. This can be caused by a large variety of reasons but the most likely is that there is lactic acid buildup in the muscles that causes the pain. By improving the circulation in the area you can get rid of it,and by physically rubbing it you can break down the lactic acid and further increase the effect. Many people could find help from using an electric massager for this purpose,as they usually do both –warm and massage.
A naturally built in function in our muscles is that when the temperature of the muscle rises,the tension lowers. The same thing happens when you go the other way around –when the temperature gets colder,your muscle will get tense. This is a way that our body controls the body temperature –tense muscles produce more heat than relaxed ones. Unfortunately when we get exposed to cold,we can experience painfully tense muscles and even cramps but these fortunately usually disappear once we apply some heat directly to the muscle.
Using an electric massager that has a built in heater we can rise the temperature in the area without the discomfort of the heat all around your body. You have to be careful with heat like this though,since an area which is suffering from inflammation should not be heated. The added heat will only further increase the inflammation and in case of an injury it can cause unwanted scarring in the muscle or ligaments. Scar tissue is not as durable and hardy as collagen which is mainly used in our ligaments,and it will not contract like your muscle tissue does.
Massaging the area physically will help with circulation as it will physically force the fluids between the cells and within the lymphatic system and veins start moving. Also our muscles have a built in reflex that causes them to relax when there is too much pain in the muscle. For only small pain this internal reflex does not overcome the contractive signals that come from your central nervous system,but once massaging brings about enough pain,the muscle will relax. You will notice this if you have a very stiff and painful muscle,and you go see a professional massage therapist who will apply pressure to the area. The pain and the stiffness will suddenly go away after a specific amount of pressure.
Generally electric massagers aren’t going to be powerful enough to open up very bad stiffness,but most people –especially women –can find them to be very helpful for back pains,neck pains,leg pains and foot pains. There are many happy electric foot massager owners who could swear on the fact that the machine saved their life. They are generally simply to use,and some of them have a heating mode as well.
This relatively lighter massage will help increase blood circulation in the area but it will also increase the flow of lymphatic fluids which will further increase the reduction of lymphatic fluid build up and lactic acid buildup which can both cause pain and stiffness.