Here’s the answers to our most commonly asked massage questions

No Pain – No Gain – Right? Wrong. The very short answer is (of course) NO!

General thoughts on this question include understanding that pain is a warning sign that the body is in danger of injury, and it should never really be ignored – It should also be recognised that there is a difference between pain and discomfort – and of course we need to remember that pain is unique to every individual … some people will proudly boast they have a high threshold to pain, while others will admit that feeling pain doesn’t make them happy. What we all need to remember is that the level of pain invoked DOES NOT directly correlate with the degree of resolution of your soft tissue problem.

Getting back to Pain being a Warning System for Protection against injury … The body also employs an automatic response to pain where all your muscles are contracted to brace against whatever is causing you pain – we in the ‘biz’ call this the Guarding Response. When the body feels pain enough that it begins guarding against contact, then the Treatment is over, and a Battle of Power begins.

The initial response generated in your body from a massage is to stimulate circulation (blood flow) – this helps the exchange of oxygen & nutrition (into) with metabolic waste (out of) muscle tissue, helping it soften and relax, which in turn eases your pain and/or mobility restriction. If your body starts to guard, the muscles tighten, and that restricts circulation as well as generating increased levels of metabolic waste, which in turn only aggravates your pain sensation.

If you can relax on the table during a treatment, you should be able to expect far greater results from your massage than if you don’t … and that includes avoiding the guarding response during a treatment.

Sure enough, some of the things we will address during a treatment will very likely be uncomfortable … it might even make you want to hold your breath – but that would not be a wise reaction either … Holding your breath will also restrict your circulation, and we already discussed what that can do for your pain. If you feel any uncomfortable sensation during a treatment – the best approach is to focus on your breathing and let us know you are feeling it … Trigger Point Release and some Myofascial Stretching/Release techniques can be challenging to feel, but they should NEVER be Painful.

Please always remember – There are no medals to be won here other than correction of postural imbalance and/or reversal of muscular tensions … As soon as we are causing you excessive pain – we are fighting your body and not treating it.

The answer to this question is always going to be different from person to person, but it can also be variable depending on what you are seeking massage for – injury rehabilitation?  correcting/improving posture? as a compliment to an exercise or training regime? for general health & well-being? the options are nearly as endless as people are individual. In general, and broad terms, you can approach this question from whichever one of these perspectives applies most to you.

The average, healthy individual – who is not carrying injury or extreme postural dysfunction – will usually be able to expect satisfactory results from a treatment frequency around 4 weeks or so. Some will find they still feel good going as long as 6-8 weeks between treatments, and others can go longer still… a big part of this equation is how you look after your own body between treatments.

If you work your body hard – at work and/or play – if you have a very physical job with heavy lifting, or if you train at the gym 5+ times every week – then you will very likely be thinking no longer than 4 weeks between treatments.

If you are recovering from injury or working towards change or correction with your posture – you should consider coming more frequently with shorter periods of time between treatments… along the lines of 1-2 weeks frequency.

if you are serious about competing in your sport, and want regular treatment to support your focussed training, you are very likely going to be thinking weekly frequency – every 2 weeks at the very least – some athletes will come twice a week for a few weeks to get targeted treatment leading into an important event.

At the end of the day – YOU are the only person who can answer this question for yourself … Everyone is individual and unique – and everyone responds differently to Remedial Treatment – the most important thing you can do is LISTEN TO YOUR OWN BODY and come as frequently as you feel you need to.

It can (and most likely will be) something that you need to refine for yourself over time, but you just need to remember to come back BEFORE you feel too tight and sore.

This decision can be a very personal choice, and the decision has potential to impact on your body – either positively or negatively – whichever way you go … I don’t necessarily believe there is a right or wrong choice here and would probably suggest trying both to see how your body responds, and then choose the potential that suits you best.

Massage BEFORE training has the potential to promote increases in work effort – leading to greater achievements in training productivity, and better results depending o your training goals … this approach could be viewed similarly to getting a Pre-Event Massage before a competition – the potential downside could be an adverse effect on your training. If the pressure and tempo of your treatment are too stimulating – it might lead to over stimulation and possible early fatigue, decreasing the output from effort and leave you disheartened from your training. Alternatively, if the treatment is slower and deeper it might lead to a feeling of lethargy and weakness that stops you from pushing your training boundaries to achieve advancements in your ability.

Massage AFTER training has the potential to support soft tissue healing after micro-trauma from a solid training session, promoting a better recovery and potential gains at your next training session … very much like Post-Event Massage. Massage soon after a workout can help us (your therapists) by allowing us to work on muscles that are already warm and full of circulation – allowing us to work more deeply, more quickly, potentially delivering a better treatment … but some people don’t like to be sweaty on the table and feel they are being polite by showering between training and their massage, and if you do that you are potentially losing the benefit of presenting for treatment with warm musculature and negating the perceived benefit of treatment after training.

At the end of the day – much like many other aspects of getting a Remedial Treatment – try both perspectives and see which one works best for you.

Contrary to what some people might tell you – NO, massage is not just a luxury.

Once upon a time you would only see massage at the Beauty Parlour. Some of the general population today might still associate massage with seedy places in dark alleys, others associate massage with Elite Sports People and World Class Athletes, but the truth is that Remedial Massage is available to everyone, everyday – and sensible people are using it to stay in good health!

The global community is continually turning to natural solutions for manufactured problems. Across all aspects of life, people are recognising that natural remedies have greater potential for longer lasting, more sustainable resolution to man-made/caused problems and complaints.

Remedial Massage is the Natural Remedy for Man-made/caused problems and complaints associated with your body and how it functions. Everybody has responsibilities in life – and everybody needs to stay healthy and functional to attend to their responsibilities … Keeping fit helps keep you healthy – and Remedial Massage helps keep you functional.

It’s true a great massage can leave you floating on air, so it’s easy to think of that feeling as a luxury seldom experienced in life. A great massage also keeps your body capable of doing the things you need to do every day, like going to work – raising your kids – caring for aging parents, or just living life in general. It’s so challenging to do all these things when you don’t care for your own body.

As we like to say at Hands from Heaven. How can you look after those you love, if you don’t look after yourself first?

Getting a massage isn’t a luxury by any stretch of the imagination, it is the best way of stopping your body from breaking down. Nobody ever questions it when you service your car, so why feel the need to justify servicing your body (it IS your greatest asset in life!).

An Assessment Process is designed to give your Therapist understanding about what might be causing your pain and or mobility restriction. There is a wide selection of Clinical Tests that every Remedial Massage Therapist is trained in – and these tests are very similar to what a Physiotherapist might do to assess an injury.

Clinical (or Orthopaedic) Testing can identify specific structures that can cause pain or restriction, but they are not the only Assessment Protocols that we can use to find out more about your problem. Sometimes the prominent problem is visibly obvious, sometimes we can get enough information through discussion with you, and sometimes the best information is how your muscles feel when we touch them.

Any of these processes – or quite commonly a combination of 2 or more of these processes – make up the Assessment Process that we will go through both before and after your massage so that we know how effective our treatment has been. This process is what makes your massage Remedial!

Essential Oils are the natural essence of a plant or flower – the chemical component that gives a plant it’s characteristic fragrance. They are considered the Life Force of the plant, and when extracted from the plant the oils contain properties that are known to have a significant physiological effect on people.

It is most commonly recognised that Essential Oils have appealing aromas that can trigger memories and feelings. They also have identified properties that can contact the Olfactory Nerve directly when you smell and inhale them, allowing direct interaction with the Limbic System in the brain, and then having effect on the Hypothalamus, Pituitary Gland and Cerebral Cortex. The properties of Essential Oils can also be absorbed into the blood stream either through the lungs when inhaled or by absorption through the skin when used in massage. Once inside the body they have therapeutic effect on other body organs and systems by stimulating and regulating hormonal secretions, activating thermal receptors, destroying microbes on the skin, and stimulating the immune system.

Epsom Salt is chemically known as Magnesium Sulphate – and the benefits of using them revolve around the Magnesium content.

Remedial Massage (no matter how deep or aggressive the techniques used are) will liberate metabolic waste out of your muscle cells … in other words – massage helps the exchange of oxygen and nutrition into, and the chemical waste out of your muscles, at the cellular level. The metabolic waste is then processed through your bodies evacuation systems, so it doesn’t aggravate nerve fibres and cause achy pain. Application of heat to your skin stimulates circulation and helps the ultimate expulsion of ‘toxins’ and/or lactic acid. It is true that a hot shower will also provide the heat application to stimulate circulation, but your body can certainly relax more in a bath when compared to a shower.

By adding the bag of Epsom Salts to your bath water, you introduce the all-important Magnesium into the equation – and this helps your body ‘cleanse from the inside’.

Your skin is not a complete barrier to the outside world – it does allow absorption of different nutrients and minerals… and thankfully Magnesium is one of them. So, sitting in an Epsom Salt bath allows the body to absorb the Magnesium in the salts, entering the circulatory system and helping metabolic waste cross cellular barriers to enter the bodies evacuation systems – thereby promoting the expulsion of toxins and lactic acid, and cleansing your muscles from the inside … increasing your probability of not feeling achy tomorrow!