Sports Massage

Stobo Castle Lake in Winter

Yesterday my hip was still giving me some grief, so I contacted a good friend of mine Deanne Tomasino, a sports massage therapist. I’ve seen her before, particularly during my marathon training a few years ago. Not surprisingly marathon training is rather brutal on the body, and a good massage therapist can help the body with recovery and injuries. 

Why would you get sports massage therapy?

It’s not something that you do for relaxation, since it’s often deep into the muscle tissue and painful. 

The two main areas that massage therapists can help with are:

• Injury prevention
• Injury rehabilitation

Although it is popular there is mixed research over it’s effectiveness. However despite this, you would be hard pressed to find a professional sportsperson who does not use massage therapy. Paula Radcliffe is a prominent user of massage and cites it as one of prime factors in keeping her running.

One reason I enjoy (if ‘enjoy’ is the right word for a rather painful treatment) these treatments is that Deanne is is very knowledgeable therapist. She has a passion for learning about the body and how it works, and this is reflected in her treatments.

During the treatment she worked on my injured hip, and diagnosed a small tear in the tendon of my glutes. It could be worse – tendons take time to heal, but not as long as ligaments. Running is OK at the moment, but I’ll have to sideline heavy squats and dead-lifts for the next few weeks. I suspect that the rowing yesterday aggravated the injury, so I’ll put that to the side too.

Another interesting thing to come out of the treatment was that the right side of my back is more muscular than the left. Deanne says that difference between the two sides is obvious to the eye. Not only that but the muscles on the right are much tighter than those on the left, which may be either a cause or effect of the hip injury.

I expect to feel sore from he treatment tomorrow, but it should help me recover for the race this Saturday.