Sports/body works massage – not just for sports people

Sports massage is immediately recognisable as a therapy but often misunderstood with the Sports bit leading people to assume that it is only for sports people. A more comprehensive description would be soft tissue and connective tissue manual therapy which doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.

However it does explain better that the musculoskeletal system and facial system (connective tissue) can become compromised through over use , under use and imbalanced use, and this covers a wider spectrum of people from the elite/beginner marathon runner to the young mother/father, keen gardener, gym bunny, desk bound computer user, elderly and retired.

Body works/ Sports massage stretches and manipulates the soft tissue and connective tissue to bring it back to a more pliable elastic state thus making you more functional and less likely to compensate and causing issues elsewhere in the body. In short it’s for everyone.

(For a more detailed description please go to Tom Myers anatomy trains on YouTube) and see the section on soft tissue/connective tissue manual therapy.

Soft tissue and connective tissue manual therapy

This comprises muscles and fascia, the muscles are the most identifiable having points of origin and points of insertion and deeper within the muscle are filaments acting and looking rather like strands of hair that when healthy and functional are nice and smooth and ordered and obviously when compromised in some way become entangled/entwined.

Cue massage acting a bit like a comb to untangle and bring back order. Fascia However is the connective tissue that not only encases muscle, bone, tendon , ligament, nerves, internal organs but interlinks and intertwines within all of these, think a spiders web like morph suit worn on the inside which is not only multi layered but glutinous.

This multi layered spiders web like morph suit relies on this glutinous substance to move, and this substance dries up when we get old , overuse a movement pattern, underuse a movement pattern and use an imbalanced movement pattern.

Guess what brings back this glutinous snot like substance within the fascia yes Sports/Body Works Massage.

For more info go to YouTube (Tom Myers Anatomy trains talks to google).