Issue link: https://www.massageandbodyworkdigital.com/i/969285
the program and data collection to be included in analysis. The program and study participation were open to members of a specific paracycling team based in Greenville, South Carolina (Greenville Health Systems Team Roger C. Peace), which had members who resided and trained in states from coast to coast. Not all members of the team participated and participation timelines varied based on when cyclists joined the team. Muscle tension reduction was identified most often by participants as treatment goals, while mention of pain occurred with regard to session goals more often for therapists. Participants attributed recovery assistance, symptom relief, and sleep benefit to their massage sessions, which they believed led to improved performance. Quantitative measures indicated no change in quality of life measures, but indicated sleep and muscle tightness improved before and after massage, and over the course of the study. In addition to reporting these results, the article is also able to frame the findings within the context of participant experience with the mixed-methods approach and the collected qualitative data. The massage for paracyclists study shares the small sample size weakness of earlier massage for sports performance research, limiting the study's generalizability. However, other methodological and study aspects (e.g., use of mixed methods, repeated measures, and 18-month timeframe) strengthen the impact and importance of the work and provide several practice and future research implications. Aspects I find particularly striking include the study's demonstration of human research challenges (which its mixed-methods approach helps), its reflection of real- world massage practice and epistemology, and what can immediately be taken away from this study and applied to practice. THE MESSINESS OF HUMAN RESEARCH I have been heard upon occasion lamenting my decision to do research with humans per its conflict to my desire to set a detailed plan (with low likelihood to change), have control, and keep structure, structure, structure. The statement that "human research is messy" should not surprise anyone who's ever worked with or interacted with a human. It's one thing to collect data on a group of people at a single time point or before and after a single intervention; this sort of schedule effort is minimal, relatively speaking. It is a whole other bucket of pickles when scheduling needs span an extended period of time and when each appointment requires the alignment of multiple schedules. Granted, this study's researchers were not yoked with the task of intervention schedule management for each participant; however, study viability and completion did rely on these aspects. The study's results speak a bit to these challenges in the program implementation section, and also when study participants are described. Some readers may have noted, as I did, the 31 percent decrease in those who participated (13 people) to those who completed enough of the program and data collection to be included in the analysis (nine people). While little specifics are reported in this regard, the paper does note athletes leaving and joining the team through study duration, as well as scheduling conflicts due to busy training plans and clinical practices, travel, life events, and transportation issues. In addition, due to the small sample size and the long study duration, it was necessary for all three time points to have data so participants would have had to complete at least 14 massage sessions, be in the study for at least 4–6 months, and completed pre- and one-day postmassage data collection at the three collection time points. These needs have a lot of contingencies that are reliant on multiple people, schedules, and follow-through, which (no matter how it's looked at) equal the potential for messy. Additional mess in this and other massage therapy research is the challenge of pointing to the specific elements of massage responsible for potentially related effects. While there were general protocols for therapists to follow, these served more as treatment frameworks rather than something fidelity (exactness of replication) could be measured on. There is also the fact that all manner of other elements in participants' lives could have had an impact on the study's outcomes. After all, participants were doing a lot of exercise, were "out in the elements" quite a bit, and potentially had other condition- and sport- related aspects impact study outcomes. All this being said, the fact remains, and will always remain, that the messy discussed here is inherent to massage therapy practice and therefore we should expect that practice-reflective research will include it as well. Still, it is important these aspects are understood when therapists or others 50 m a s s a g e & b o d y w o r k m a y / j u n e 2 0 1 8 Study participants attributed recovery assistance, symptom relief, and sleep benefit to their massage sessions, which they believed led to improved performance.