A few weeks ago I had my first serious deep tissue massage in several years. The woman who did the massage was a former used to work for a pro cycling team. She was originally going to give me a sports “massage” but once she started working on my legs she said that I had a ton of deep tissue areas that needed to be addressed. I saw her again 2 weeks later.
Since those sessions I have noticed that my power on the bike seems nowhere near what it was before. After an off season focused heavily on intensity my ftp has gone down quite a bit. I should note that I missed quite a few workouts in this time period but in the past my ftp has come back very quickly and the loss never seemed this severe. Can the loosening of muscled with deep tissue massage contribute to this?
I feel pretty sluggish the day after my “search and destroy” sessions with my MT. But my mojo comes back within 48 hours or so. I’ve been getting worked over for the past 10 years and never had any loss of power for longer than a day or 2.
If your massage was REAL deep then maybe two days your legs would feel beat up like after a longer harder ride, but if anything after that your massage your ftp should have gone up once you have more range of motion from your massage. So to answer your question NO its not the massage.