Remedial Massage: What is it and Why You Should Get One?

What is Remedial Massage?

“Remedial massage is the assessment and treatment of dysfunction, supported by a treatment plan and documented treatment notes.”

Remedial massage is a specialised therapeutic form of massage that brings together a slew of styles and techniques, such as deep-tissue massage and trigger-point therapy. It’s especially designed to focus on treating specific injuries and repairing damage to muscles, ligaments, tendons, and other connective tissue.

What’s the difference between a ‘Remedial Massage’ and a relaxing (Swedish) massage?

Remedial massage provides a healing treatment that can be gentle or strong, deep or shallow. When muscles and tendons become damaged, impaired, knotted, tense or immobile, remedial massage provides an effective healing treatment.

Remedial massage holistically treats the whole body and traces the discomfort as far as possible back to the original cause, healing both the cause of the disorder as well as the symptoms.

You may have visited a massage therapist in the past and had a lovely relaxing massage sending you into a nice deep sleep. Remedial massage (sometimes called Sports Massage) can indeed make you feel relaxed and sleepy, but it is primarily for treating or repairing damage as opposed to just for relaxing.

That’s not to say that a remedial massage is going to hurt… however, it may do! Those tight areas and stiff muscles that you’re feeling are going to need some work done to them and although initially this may feel nice and relaxing, with a remedial massage I’ll go deeper into the muscles (Deep Tissue Massage) this may even result in some bruising in the days following your massage. I can even work on some ‘trigger points’ if I identify them during your massage. Trigger points feel like little ‘knots’ under your skin, but if you have ever had one worked on, you’ll know that they feel far from ‘little’! (it’s important to note that a massage should never be completely unpleasant, so if the trigger pints are too painful, it’s not an issue and I will take some of the pressure off and work to reduce the ‘knot’ another way!)

How can a Remedial Massage help?

• Reduced muscle tension
• Stimulation of the lymphatic system
• Improve the recovery of soft tissue injuries
• Correcting problems in your body (e.g. postural)
• Improved circulation
• Reduced stress and anxiety
• Increased range of motion
• Break down scar tissue and adhesions
• Improve flexibility

Who can benefit from a Remedial Massage?

In a nutshell… everyone! You don’t have to be a sportsperson or an athlete to benefit from a remedial (or sports) massage. That’s not to say that athletes won’t benefit from this type of massage, of course they will, and as a rule, most competitive athletes will have a regular massage therapist on speed dial to help take care of any painful tight muscles.

This style of deep tissue massage can work wonders on nearly everyone; an office worker with a sore neck; A mum carrying a baby on her hip all day; Sore muscles from wearing high heels on a night out; Saturday soccer player; even children and oncology patients can benefit from a remedial massage! Book yours today.