Massage therapist Andy Swan works at Lushington Chiropractic in Eastbourne. In this blog post he shares how the pain and discomfort caused by overtraining first led him to trying massage therapy as a way to help him get his health back on track.
It was over fifteen years ago now. I was kickboxing at the time and was in a state from over training. Being young and thinking that I was bullet proof, as you do at that age, I was trying my best to ignore the constant muscle aches that were simply not going away.
When I finally decided to seek help, I was very nervous about the whole process. But I soon realised that there was nothing to worry about. I was greeted and made to feel very welcome by the massage therapist who treated me, a gentleman called Ken Oeley.
In my case, it was my legs and lower back that were overly tight as a result of not consistently stretching and cooling down after training. Over time this had caused the muscles in my legs and back to freeze in an almost constant state of contraction. To make matters worse, this issue was impacting on my body’s biomechanics, causing imbalances and placing even greater strain on my muscles, joints and ligaments.
Ken ran me through this and explained how the massage would help. However, he was quick to point out that it was equally important that I started consistently cooling down and stretching after training. If I didn’t, he warned me that I would risk undoing all the work that he was doing or that, at the very least, it would significantly prolong the course of treatment required.
The massage it self was great with lots of deep tissue work to start to break down adhesions between muscles and fascia. I was also pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t the excruciatingly painful experience I had been expecting. Sure, there was a bit of tenderness after a session but I found that I enjoyed the feeling of flexibility and mobility that came after a session. Ken did a lot of stretching and frictional work to help break down the matted mess that I had let the tissue become. At the end I felt great at least fifty percent better and my movement patterns felt much freer and easier. This continued to improve with each following treatment.
I had been told many horror stories about how the massage would be hell and I would feel like I had been hit by a train the next day none of this was the case. The next day felt great which in turn motivated me to get on top of stretching and getting a really good cool down routine done daily.
This article was written by Lushington Chiropractic massage therapist – Andy Swan
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