How to get the best from your Treatment?

Remedial Massage has gained in popularity quite significantly over the last 20-25 years as people from all walks of life have come to recognise the multitude of benefits it can provide. It has transformed from an indulgent luxury for the ‘Ladies who Lunch’ into a respected treatment option for a broad range of people who care enough about their bodies to take control of how they look after themselves. It has proven not only to be very helpful for managing the stress of everyday life, but also very effective with injury rehabilitation and pain management.

There are a few different factors though that can affect how you feel after a Remedial Massage Treatment – things like:

• What condition your body was in before you came for treatment;
• How well the therapist knows your musculature and how it responds to different remedial techniques; and
• How well you and your therapist communicate throughout your treatment.

So – How do you get the best out of your treatment?

If we look specifically at the 3 dot-points listed above …

• Regarding your body’s condition … are you:

  • ‘feeling OK – not too good, but not too bad’;
  • ‘feeling achy and stiff’; or are you
  • ‘just broken!’ …

To avoid your worst-case scenario, make sure you come in with some degree of regular frequency – or at the very least, before you feel too sore or restricted. We all understand that muscle has memory – so let regular treatment help teach your muscles to be functional & comfortable.

How frequently is recommended I hear you ask …?… This will very likely be different from person to person, so we encourage you to ‘listen to your own body’ and respond while it is merely talking and not yet screaming at you. There will be more on this in a future post …

• Regarding the relationship between you and your therapist …

Massage is very similar to Fitness Training in this respect … It isn’t necessarily essential to dedicate yourself to the same therapist every time – with complete exclusivity, but there can be a reasonable benefit recognised when your therapist gets to understand your body & muscles – how they react with different techniques & pressures – and can recognise your personal pain threshold to work effectively within it.

Sometimes a different therapist will know different techniques – or have different experience – that can work very well with your current complaint … and variety is said to be the spice of life … but especially if you are getting a series of treatments focused on a specific goal (like postural correction) there is probably more benefit in seeing the same therapist with frequency.

• Regarding communication between you and your therapist …

Communication is said to be the answer for most things, and a Remedial Massage is no different. Treatment is never meant to hurt or be painful (unnecessarily) and while some techniques might push this boundary, you need to remember that there is no shame in ‘tapping out’.

The human body was designed with an in-built safeguard system that we ‘in the biz’ call guarding … this is when your muscles tense under pressure to prevent further injury and/or pain. Again, there will be more on this in a future post – but suffice to say we encourage you to talk with your therapist about pressure so that together you can find the happy-medium – pressure deep enough to be effective without causing undue pain.

But the final secret to feeling AMAZING after your massage?

 Simply just RELAX while you are on the table … Don’t do anything other than ‘become-one’ with the table and let us do the work. There might be times that a technique is more effective when you activate a muscle, but we will talk to you about that at the time if it is appropriate … otherwise, just ‘BE’ on the table and disconnect from life for a while.

It might sound very simplistic, but you will always get more benefit from a massage if you are consciously relaxed during your treatment   …   Just letting everything go and being a rag doll on the table – Don’t try to help us by holding your arms or legs in position, just let go and melt into the table.

Why is it so important for you to relax on the table?

Because when you hold your arm/leg/head in any position you are activating those muscles … Activating muscles makes them tighten enough to resist relaxation and restrict local circulation … If your muscles are not as relaxed as they can be, they are not as soft and malleable as they should be for massage, and this can hinder our attempts to release your tension – even making some techniques more uncomfortable than they should be.

and Please always remember …

Whether you come in for regular Maintenance Remedial Massage in conjunction with your gym/fitness program, whether the focus of treatment is either Postural Correction or Injury Rehabilitation … Please just relax on the table and let us do the work.