What is remedial and sports massage and who is it for?
Author: Piia Laakso
Feel you’re not ‘sporty’ enough for such a specific, deep and often painful treatment? This old-school myth surrounding sports massage is changing! We disagree with the ethos ‘no pain, no gain’, and think it is all about ‘less pain, more to gain’.
SO WHAT IS REMEDIAL SPORTS MASSAGE?
Sports massage is a type of remedial massage, and can be used to help tissues recover or heal.
Remedial, meaning ‘remedy’, rehabilitates the soft tissues through basic and advanced massage techniques in order to promote the healing process of a variety of common problems.
These include issues that can be due to:
muscle
joints
tendons
ligaments
Training in Health Sciences and at Bristol College of Massage and Bodywork involves understanding the influence of stress on our physical and mental health, and the importance of quality of touch with respect and skill, in a safe-feeling environment. Hands-on massage techniques can improve both mental and physical wellbeing.
DOES REMEDIAL SPORTS MASSAGE REQUIRE EXTRA TRAINING?
Yes! To offer ‘remedial sports therapy’ the practitioner must be trained in advanced understanding of anatomy and physiology, and the soft tissue repair stages.
This means a remedial sports therapist can provide clients with exercises and guidance on lifestyle advice that promote recovery and prevent future problems/ re-injury.
Remedial and sports massage can be part of your wider treatment or exercise program, and works well alongside physiotherapy and osteopathy for example.
WHEN IS REMEDIAL SPORTS MASSAGE HELPFUL?
Sports massage can be used to heal or prepare for sporting events, such as a local parkrun or a triathlon competition.
If you think this would be helpful for your next event, it should be organised for no more than a couple of hours pre/ post your sporting event to support performance or recovery. Treatment is not tailored to fix last minute issues or new injuries.
This type of massage and treatment can be really useful for:
over training injuries
recurring back problems
shoulder injuries (for example aggravated by loss of strength and flexibility due to desk based jobs)
someone who feels achy or tense due to chronic stress and wants to get back to being active
Athletic people who want to prevent injuries
Support someone recovering from a fall
The treatment can be completely tailored to your needs, but most people will benefit in some way from massage. It can help injury prevention, posture and other forms of stress.
Good remedial and sports massage treatments are not measured in how deep pressure or pain you can tolerate. An effective outcome and change in muscle tissue can be achieved without causing you additional pain.
When you feel relaxed and comfortable in a treatment, your nervous system will respond by sending signals of relaxation back to the tissue level which in turn can repair and rebalance itself.
Come and give it a go!
You can book with Piia for Remedial Sports Massage for 1 hour, for £60