After a hard workout or a particularly strenuous day of working outside, you find yourself reaching for that bottle of Advil to soothe your sore muscles.  While that may work, so does a good massage.  Instead of reaching for your favorite over the counter pain killer, you could be reaching for the phone and calling your trusted massage therapist for a session.  Fox News was able to find out some information about massage and muscles that may surprise you.

In a study, male volunteers did a physically taxing workout and then be seperated into two groups.  One group took painkillers and rested.  The other recieved massages.  Afterwards, both groups got a small muscle biopsy so the scientsts could see if there were any differences.  What they found was those who recieved massages healed better.

"Vigorous exercise causes mini tears in muscles, which leads to inflammation. But those who received massage had reduced levels of cytokines, which play a role in inflammation…(Also) Those subjects who had massage were also better able to make new mitochondria, which are the energy-producing units in the cells, promoting faster recovery from exercise-induced muscle damage," quoted the article.

Does this surprise you?