Whether you’ve just finished a HIIT class, a sprint session, or an upper-body workout, muscle soreness is to be expected. Everyone has a favorite way to recover, relying on foam rolling, stretching, ice baths (check out the benefits of cold therapy), and saunas. But there’s a new discovery that might just turn them all upside down.
There's a strategic type of massage called the “triple-eight technique,” and evidence suggests it can relieve muscle stiffness and soreness almost instantly, according to a new study. Cell Reports.
The research, led by Michael Dimitriou, associate professor at the Department of Medical and Translational Biology at Umeå University, focused on muscle spindles, which are sensory receptors that help maintain muscles.
When a muscle is stretched, muscle spindles are activated and signal the brain that certain joints, ligaments, or muscles are in danger of being stretched too far and too fast. They can tell the muscles to stay contracted to reduce tension (aka the stretch reflex), thus minimizing injury.
“The results provide an important piece of the puzzle in understanding what information our nervous system receives from the muscles,” Dimitriou says.
What is the Triple Eight Technique?
For the study, the researchers applied three different levels of sustained pressure to the participants' forearm muscles. While applying pressure, they simultaneously recorded signals from nerve fibers within the muscle spindles they were pressing. When the participants held their muscles still, the muscle spindles responded strongly to the muscle pressure.
The response suggested that pressure alone was sufficient stimulus for these receptors. However, when participants moved their hand while the forearm was under pressure, the spindle response increased significantly. According to the researchers, this finding challenges the current understanding that muscle spindles only respond to a stretching movement.
The study also found that when researchers suddenly removed pressure from the muscles, the activity of the spindles quickly dropped below the levels before any pressure was applied. Because of this finding, the researchers recommended the “triple eight” technique, which involves using a finger to apply a low amount of pressure to a sore or stiff muscle area for eight seconds, releasing the pressure for eight seconds, and then reapplying the pressure for another eight seconds. Then, you follow that up by slowly stretching the relaxed muscle.
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Similar to trigger point or massage therapy, this method can reduce muscle stiffness and pain by applying pressure to the affected area. In trigger point or massage therapy, massage therapists will apply pressure to the affected point to temporarily cut off circulation. This then increases nitric oxide levels and allows blood flow to break up the trigger point.
While the news that the triple figure-eight technique can help reduce muscle stiffness and pain is promising, more research is needed to determine if this is a foolproof method that could work on other individuals and other muscles.