Sports Massage Available at Back on Track Injury Clinic.
A sports massage treats soft tissue aches, pains and injuries associated with exercise and general recreational activity. At Back on Track Injury Clinic, we tailor our deep tissue sports massage to your specific injury and your sporting objectives. A sports massage plays a major role in injury recovery and is a hallmark of our treatments. Why? Because a sports massage can help to reduce pain, muscle stiffness and promote blood flow to assist in healing and recovery.
What is sports massage?
Sports massage is a clinical massage that focuses on improving muscle, joint, tendon and ligament health to prevent sports injuries and improve rehabilitation. It involves slow and deliberate strokes that will facilitate treatment of sore muscles and other injuries. A qualified sports massage therapist will use their hands, fingers, thumbs, fists, elbows and forearms to penetrate tight areas and respond to how the muscle reacts. Sports massage utilises a variety of techniques depending on your objective. This includes remedial massage, myofascial trigger point therapy, lymphatic drainage and deep tissue work.
A sports massage is different to a normal massage because it is targeted and designed to deliver care to a patient. It does more than just relax you. It gets you back on track and can help you start running, cycling or swimming again. Put simply, a sports massage aims to both fix and prevents problems.
Why should you get a sports massage?
Sports massage has many benefits for athletes at any level. It will compliment your rehabilitation from injury and help to prevent injury re-occurring in the future. A sports massage on the day of a big race or event can help you feel prepared and assist in muscle activation from specific stimulating techniques used.
We recognise that there is nothing worse than getting injured – an injury can impact your mental health as well as your physical wellbeing. Back on Track Injury Clinic recommends a sports massage because it can help with your psychological as well as your physical recovery.
Benefits of a sports massage
Every recreational athlete has likely suffered from Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness aka DOMS. Whether you’re going hard at the gym, running long distance or open water swimming, DOMS strikes and makes it painful to walk and go about your usual daily activities.
A sports massage can help relieve DOMS symptoms.
How? When you exercise, you cause microtears on a cellular level in your muscles. This leads to an inflammatory response and pain a day or two after you’ve finished exercising. A sports massage increases blood flow to these microtears, speeding up the inflammatory process and promoting healing. It can also give a lot of relief from the pain associated with DOMS.
The benefits of a sports massage include:
Reduced pain
Enhanced inflammatory process, meaning the effects of training can begin faster
Improved recovery
Greater psychological recovery
When should you schedule your sports massage?
Prevention is the best type of cure. There’s a reason you warm up before a workout – a sports massage is no different.
At Back On Track Injury Clinic, we recommend you stay ahead of any aches and pains with a sports massage every 2-6 weeks depending on your needs. Scheduling ahead, even for a 30-minute massage, is the difference between stopping potential pain, and having to push through the pain. Being preventive is also cheaper in the long run.
If you’re training for a race, a mid-training sports massage can identify little niggles and then exercises can be given alongside your training plan to help prevent them turning into an injury that requires time away from training. It is totally a personal choice to have your final sports massage before your event.
As a sports massage can sometimes cause soreness (the good kind), your massage will be individually tailored depending on personal preference and how close you are to your competition.
Back on track injury clinic sports massage prices
Back On Track Injury Clinic offers 30-minute and 60-minute sports massage therapy sessions.
30 minutes: from £35 per session
60 minutes: from £60 per session
Testimonial
“Once I reached the end I was tearful due to the emotions of completing 300 miles with an amazing bunch of people. It’s thanks to your amazing work keeping my body fit to complete it that I managed it with minimal injuries”