1. Date of download: 7/6/2016 Copyright © ASME. All rights reserved. From: An Engineering Approach for Quantitative Analysis of the Lengthwise Strokes in Massage Therapies J. Med. Devices. 2008;2(4):041003-041003-8. doi:10.1115/1.2996623 Experiment setup for applying compressive loadings and lengthwise strokes. (a) Compressive forces were applied to the animal tissue during the lengthwise strokes where the magnitude and frequency of the forces and the transverse motion of the kneading wheel were continuously monitored. (b) An experiment was performed on the hind limb of a rabbit. Figure Legend:

2. Date of download: 7/6/2016 Copyright © ASME. All rights reserved. From: An Engineering Approach for Quantitative Analysis of the Lengthwise Strokes in Massage Therapies J. Med. Devices. 2008;2(4):041003-041003-8. doi:10.1115/1.2996623 Lengthwise strokes showed striking effects on recovering the postexercise muscle damage. After a lengthwise massage of 30 min/day (0.5 Hz) for four consecutive days (average load of about 11.4 N), the peak toque of the tissue increased by 117% than that of the tissue immediately following the eccentric exercise. The minimal muscle fiber damage and infiltrating leukocytes were also observed (shown in the subfigures). The green arrow indicates the torn muscle fiber, and the black arrow indicates the increased level of infiltrating leukocytes in the postexercise muscle. Figure Legend:

3. Date of download: 7/6/2016 Copyright © ASME. All rights reserved. From: An Engineering Approach for Quantitative Analysis of the Lengthwise Strokes in Massage Therapies J. Med. Devices. 2008;2(4):041003-041003-8. doi:10.1115/1.2996623 The mechanical impact between the piston and cylinder body of the pneumatic linear actuator induced force fluctuation at the end of each lengthwise stroke. Under a loading frequency of 0.5 Hz, it took about 0.5 s for the system to be stabilized after the impact and for the force fluctuation to attenuate to an allowable level. Figure Legend: