Conditions and injuries that benefit from sports massage.

March 31, 2021
1:10 pm

Sports massage is a massage therapy style involving deep tissue techniques to help alleviate muscle tension, discomfort, and pain. It is extremely popular among athletes but is not limited to athletic injuries alone, as deep massage techniques can be used to treat various issues.

What is sports massage?

Stretching and compression movements are usually followed in sports massage. A sports massage therapist will use a wide range of friction techniques, energy techniques, dynamic movement, and trigger point compression techniques during the session.

What conditions or injuries benefit from sports massage?

Numerous issues can be treated with sports massage, including but not limited to:

Headaches: Deep-tissue massage, which uses firm pressure and slow strokes to massage deeper muscle layers, can help relax strained muscles that may be the source of headache pain.
Tennis Elbow: This can be relieved and treated far more effectively with the forearm’s deep tissue massage. Friction therapy breaks up scar tissue, reduces pain, releases muscle spasms, and improves flexibility,
Muscular injuries and joint strains: Massage therapy helps to loosen tight muscles and increase blood flow, which aids in the healing of damaged tissues. Applying pressure to the injured muscle tissue also assists in the removal of excess fluid and waste products.
Whiplash: To reduce muscle tension and restore full range of motion, the physiotherapist will use various strokes and stretches in areas adjacent to the primary site of injury.
Back ailments: Back pain may also benefit from massage. It can help you feel better and get back on your feet faster, as a flare-up of low back pain can take anywhere from several weeks to a few months to recover.
Chronic pain related to poor posture: Deep tissue massage will soothe overworked and strained muscles, as well as help your body return to its correct and natural alignment.

How often do I need to have massage therapy?

This depends entirely on the demands you place on your body and how your body responds to them. The majority of elite athletes receive at least one massage per week. Most amateurs who take their sport seriously or those who want to improve their workouts will, on average, see their physiotherapist twice a month. For most people who attend the gym regularly, once every three to four weeks is sufficient.

How does sports massage prevent injury?

Blood flow improves significantly during a massage. Elevated blood flow provides the muscles with more oxygen to work with, and increased oxygen keeps muscles healthy, supple and strong, therefore preventing injuries.

Is sports massage supposed to hurt?

Certain areas may feel a little tender, but it shouldn’t hurt. If the pressure or technique becomes too much for you, always feel free to let your physiotherapist know. Drink plenty of water to flush out the lactic acid in the muscle tissues and assist the lymphatic system.

Finally, whether it’s taking time out for yourself or relieving physical pain and muscle tension, massage therapy has been shown to lower daily stress and anxiety levels. As a result, your quality and quantity of sleep, which is necessary for everyday life, will most definitely improve.

Adam Gray

Adam graduated from UCLAN in 2010 with a 1st Class Honours Degree in Physiotherapy.

Following this, he worked in a variety of settings including elite sport, private practice and occupational health departments for various organisations.

In 2013, Adam moved to Total Physiotherapy, initially working at the Oldham clinic, then Blackburn, and finally the Longridge clinic. Throughout this period of transition, he progressively developed his clinical skills and expertise. He now holds the position of Regional Clinical Lead and is tasked with training, mentoring and developing our physios across several clinics.

Adam is qualified to deliver dry needling & acupuncture, and adopts a hands on approach to treatment. He is adept at tailoring treatment to suit the individual and his friendly approach helps create a reassuring environment for the patient to get better.

He has completed a Diploma in Musculoskeletal Medicine in 2018, which has further developed his knowledge base and clinical skills.

Adam is a keen runner and plays both football and cricket. This allows him to empathise with those who are unable to perform their beloved sports/exercise due to injury. He is also an avid Preston North End FC supporter (for his sins) and has a 2 year old daughter, which has helped him realise there’s more to life than football!

Adam currently works at our Longridge clinic Monday 8-4, Wednesday 8-4, Thursday 12-8 & Saturday mornings 8-12, as well as the Blackburn clinic 8-4 on a Friday.

Carys McAulay

Carys has recently graduated from the University of Salford with a degree in Sport Rehabilitation. Whilst getting her degree Carys also gained qualifications in sports massage and medical acupuncture.

Carys has represented Great Britain and Scotland for her age group in 800m at the World Youth Championships and Commonwealth Youth Games. Her passion for Sport Rehabilitation started through her own injuries during her athletic career as she wanted to build on her skills to help others facing injuries themselves.

Carys is also working alongside Nottingham Rugby to help with MSK injuries and treatment. She has worked alongside many other Great Britain athletes and sports teams around the UK.

Education and Advice

As part of your physiotherapy experience with us, your physiotherapist will strive to give you as much detail and information about your injury or condition, they types of treatment they are using and the benefits and outcomes. They will also advise you on day today management and living with your injury.

It is our philoshopy that if we empower the patient with the right kind of information this will help the patient to recover quicker as they have a better understanding of their condition and what factors may influence on this positively or negatively.

We encourage our patient to always ask questions at every stage of their treatment and to never leave a session ‘unsure’ or ‘not knowing’ why we have done a certain treatment or advised a certain exercise.

KNOWLEDGE IS POWER!

Taping Techniques

For some injuries your physiotherapist may recommend taping or strapping a certain part of the body. This can be done for many reasons and the physio will discuss these with you on an individual basis. A few examples are listed below.

Patella Mal-tracking- tape might be applied to help keep the knee cap in the correct alignment whilst the muscles are being strengthened.

Postural conditions- The physio may apply tape to certain areas of the body to aid the muscles in learning/adapting a new posture, this may also be done post surgically.

Kinesiotape- This can be applied for a number of reasons to varies parts of the body for reducing inflammation, promotion of circulation, re-education of the neuromuscular system and preventing injury.

Joint taping/bracing- this may be done to prevent further injury or stress to a particular structure of the body. A rigid tape will be applied to limit certain joint movements whilst the body is recovering. This may be used for joint instability and ligaments sprains.

Ultrasound

Therapeutic ultrasound has been used by physiotherapists since the 1940’s and its benefits include, increased healing rates, tissue relaxation, tissue heating, an increase in local blood flow to the injury site and increasing scar tissue breakdown.

These properties can be particularly useful in acute injuries where there may be a lot of swelling/bruising ie ankle strain or post surgery. In tendon based injuries where blood supply is limited, such as tennis elbow or Achilles tendonitis or in muscular spasm injuries where the vibration of the ultrasound will have a relaxation effect on the muscles.

Pilates

Pilates aims to strengthen the body in an even way. It particularly targets the core strength and aims to improve general fitness and well being. Exercises are normally done on a foam mat. Pilates can offer something for people of all ages and abilities.

Benefits from regular Pilates include, better posture, increased muscle tone, improved balance and increased joint range of motion. The main difference between Pilates and yoga is that in Pilates the exercises are performed in a flowing movement without the static holding of poses which is associated with Yoga.

Acupuncture

Acupuncture originates from traditional Chinese medicine but is today widely accepted by the western world as an effective tool to relieve pain and treat a range of medical conditions.

What is Acupuncture?

Traditional practitioners believe that an energy force known as Qi flows through the body; when Qi is insufficient, unbalanced or obstructed, it can lead to illness or injury. Acupuncture is about restoring the balance of Qi to bring you back to full health.

Western practitioners base their treatment on evidence that acupuncture stimulates nerves and muscle tissue, resulting in a change to the patient’s perception of pain.

The practice causes the body to produce natural, pain-relieving hormones such as endorphins, reduces muscle spasm, stimulates the immune system and generally relaxes the person.

What is involved?

The therapist will insert sterile, single use, disposable needles (typically 25 – 50 times thinner than a small syringe used by a doctor) into the skin at particular points of the body. Exactly where on the body will depend on the person’s specific symptoms.

Treatment tends to last 20 – 30 minutes but can be longer.

Are there any side effects?

Acupuncture is recommended by many health care professionals because it has few side effects. Acupuncture is most effective when undertaken as course of treatment (usually 8 – 10 sessions as per NICE guidelines)

Soft tissue release/ Joint Mobilisations

Utilising a hands on approach for many injuries will help to facilate the patients to complete their exercises as well as helping to reduce muscular tension, alleviate muscle soreness and improve joint mobility.

Your physiotherapist may utilise soft tissue techniques such as massage, myofascial release, cross frictions, stretching, trigger point release and joint mobilisation

Sports massage can also be an effective way to return you to optimum performance levels in your chosen sport. You do not need to have suffered an injury as such to attend our clinics for a sports massage it is an effective way of maintaining your muscles for activity.

Exercise therapy

Evidence shows that for most injuries that our team will treat that exercise is one of the best forms of treatment to help the patient overcome their problems.

As part of your treatment course with us as Total Physiotherapy our team will provide you with a detailed and bespoke exercise plan that will help you to recover. This plan will have progressions and regressions built into it and will continuously be monitored and updated at each session to ensure that you are working on the most appropriate activities for your injury.

Headaches/Migraines

Another common complaint that the team at Total Physiotherapy regularly treat are headaches and migraines. On the initial assessment the physio will conduct an indepth assessment to rule out anything from a medical aspect that may be causing these problems, however they may request that you attend a GP appointment if they feel this is necessary for any further investigations.

Some of the most common reasons for headaches and migraines are muscular stiffness/tension around the neck and upper back, postural issues, trapped nerves and environmental factors (sitting/driving long periods)

Some of the effective treatments our team will use to overcome these problems for you are joint mobilisations, exercise therapy, soft tissue release techniques and acupuncture.

Pre/Post Surgical Care

We see many patients come through our doors for pre and post surgical appointments. This may be to strengthen a certain area prior to an operation, this helps to speed up recovery post operation, or it may be to work on the reduction of swelling and increase range of motion and strength post surgery.

The team at Total Physiotherapy have extensive experience dealing with all types of surgical procedures from arthroscopy of the knee/shoulder to total knee/hip replacements and even spinal operations such as fusions and discectomies.

Each surgeon will use their own protocol for physiotherapy following an operation and our team will work closely with the Surgeon to get the quickest and most effective form of treatment underway to help get you overcome your problems.

Womens Health

We have certain members of our team here at Total Physiotherapy that specialise in all matters relating to Womens Health issues, this includes, antenatal advice and exercise, treatment for Symphysis Pubis Disorder (SPD), Post natal issues such as- Diastasis Rectus Abdominus (separated stomach muscles), urinary leakage, pelvic muscles weakness and other gynaecological conditions.

We understand this is a very sensitive and potentially embarrasing topic/area for a lot of females but our team strive to handle this with the upmost of dignity and respect whilst helping you to achieve great results and improving your quality of life. They will have seen your condition many times in the past and will instantly put you at ease with their level of experience in this field. A large focus of the rehabilitation for this type of condition is linked to exercise therapy, getting the correct exercises and plan in place for you as a patient will be our physio’s primary focus and making sure that you are comfortable and understand the bespoke program they are creating for you is paramount to its success.

Sports Injuries

Our Physio team at Total Physiotherapy is vastly experienced in treating a wide variety of conditions that arise from any form of sporting activity be it a contact or non contact environment, encompassing amateur to professional level athletes. This ranges from muscle strains, ligament strains, tendon problems, muscular imbalances, fracture/dislocations and overuse issues. The individual treatment for each injury is very different and your physiotherapist will give you a thorough diagnosis and a detailed and bespoke rehabilitation and training plan built round your needs and level of activity. This is likely to include, Joint mobilisation, soft tissue release techniques, exercise therapy and education/advice of the injury.

Degenerative conditions

As the body ages it is understandable that we will start to get deterioration of certain structures. This can be for multiple reasons including overuse, genetics, pathological reasons, environmental factors (work/positions) or general wear and tear.

This includes such things as, degenerative disk disease, osteoarthritis, meniscal/cartilage problems, muscular weakness.

After a comprehensive assessment your physiotherapist will be able to narrow down the reasoning behind your degenerative condition and start working with you to reduce its affect on day to day life. The management approach adopted by the Total Physiotherapy team will vary vastly depending on the reason and type of condition you present with. We also have the ability to refer onwards for additional imaging requests (x-Ray/MRI) if it is deemed appropriate.

Grace Cowley

Grace has been working as a Physiotherapist since graduating from the University of Nottingham in 2011. Always having a passion for musculoskeletal conditions, she initially gained experience working with British Swimming at the Loughborough Intensive Training Centre, working alongside elite athletes and the Loughborough University Swimming Team, prior to gaining employment at Loughborough General Hospital.

Following a change in sport, Grace started working with the local RFL Regional Rugby League Academy, Midlands Hurricanes. Providing services for both U16 & U19 clinics and match days, she was then picked to provide therapy services for a combined regional team versus Australia School Boys in Nov 2014.

Whilst continuing to develop her immediate medical management skills in Rugby League, Grace has since developed in her NHS career and is now working in a specialised musculoskeletal rotational role in Nottingham. This has helped further her interests in complex Orthopaedic cases and rehabilitation, including ligament reconstruction and shoulder biomechanics.

Grace has worked in private practice since graduating which she thoroughly enjoys! She is fully trained in Acupuncture and Trigger Point needling, and has a keen interest in many sports, recently working alongside Athletics providing education in Injury Prevention and management and injury prevention screening.

Grace is available for appointments on Monday 4.30 – 8.00 , Thursday 4.30 – 8.00 and every 4th Saturday.

Back and Neck Pain

Neck and Back pain is the most common injury seen in our clinics at Total Physiotherapy and our team deliver expert care in a range of treatments to help you overcome this.

How can Physiotherapy help my neck and back pain?

Physiotherapy is extremely beneficial for neck and low back pain with a large amount of research available which supports its effectiveness as a treatment method. There are a number of different treatment methods which can be used for low back pain which will depend on its presentation and severity. At Total Physiotherapy the physiotherapist will complete a thorough assessment, ruling out any sinister cases through asking specific questions. Once the physiotherapist has completed a thorough assessment, they will then be able to provide hands on treatment which again, will depend on the severity of the patient’s symptoms.

Treatment methods include soft tissue massage, acupuncture, exercise prescription, joint mobilisations, joint manipulations, stretching and trigger point release therapy. The physiotherapist’s at Total Physiotherapy use an evidence based approach and the above treatment methods have recommended in the NICE Guidelines for low back and neck pain.

Acupuncture

Acupuncture originates from traditional Chinese medicine but is today widely accepted by the western world as an effective tool to relieve pain and treat a range of medical conditions.

What is Acupuncture?

Western practitioners base their treatment on evidence that acupuncture stimulates nerves and muscle tissue, resulting in a change to the patient’s perception of pain.

The practice causes the body to produce natural, pain-relieving hormones such as endorphins, reduces muscle spasm, stimulates the immune system and generally relaxes the person.

What is involved?

Are there any side effects?

Is it right for me?

There is conclusive, scientific evidence to show that acupuncture can offer relief to people of all ages, suffering from a wide range of conditions including:

Back pain
Tendonitis
Neck pain and sprains
Foot pain
Headaches and Migraines
Soft tissue injuries
Arthritis

Does acupuncture actually work?

Many of our patients have experienced great benefits from acupuncture treatment and we believe strongly in its use as a complementary therapy. Do not hesitate to contact us to discuss whether it could be the right option for you.

Musculoskeletal Physiotherapy

Musculoskeletal Physiotherapy incorporates an in-depth assessment and diagnosis, followed by a wide range of techniques and treatments designed to reduce or eliminate pain in the muscles, bones, joints or soft tissue areas of the body, whether caused by injury or degeneration.

A multi-dimensional physio treatment plan is created to ensure the body is not only rehabilitated in the safest possible way, but also to prevent re-occurrence through stretching, stabilising and strengthening the affected area.

Physiotherapy treatment plans can include the following techniques:

Manipulation/mobilisation techniques
Deep transverse frictional massage
Muscle energy techniques
Ultrasonic therapy
Acupuncture
Massage
Pilates
Heat therapy
Cold therapy
Gym rehabilitation
Specific taping techniques
Mechanical traction

Our 25 years of experience providing physiotherapy services in Manchester and beyond means we have seen pretty much every type of injury to every part of the body.

Musculoskeletal Physiotherapy can be used to treat:

Back pain
Shoulder pain
Elbow pain including Tennis Elbow
Neck pain
Headaches
Wrist pain and hand pain
Knee pain including cartilage tears
Achilles, ankle and foot pain
Calf and shin pain
Ligament sprains/tears
Arthritis
Sports injuries
Fracture rehabilitation
Trapped nerves
Muscle strains
Cartilage tears
Pre and post surgery rehabilitation

Louise Richardson

Louise has been working as a physiotherapist since graduating from the university of Brighton in 2011 .

With a passion for musculoskeletal Physiotherapy, she initially started working within a private practice, treating a variety of MSK conditions and building her skills within Matwork Pilates, dry needling, taping and manual therapy.

After working in the UK for a few years, Louise decided to broaden her horizons and relocated to Singapore. Here she worked within a government hospital, treating neurological and rehab patients before returning to her passion of treating MSK conditions.

During her time in Singapore Louise was able to enjoy another passion of traveling and experiencing different cultures within South East Asia.

Naomi Sargent

Naomi graduated from the University of Nottingham in 2014 with first class degree honours in physiotherapy.

Since then Naomi has been completing her junior rotations within the NHS at Nottingham University Hospitals Trust, where she is developing her skills and practice within all areas of the wide scope of physiotherapy.

The musculoskeletal setting is where her interests lie, assessing and treating various injuries and conditions with an individualised, patient centred approach. Naomi aims to offer a combination of hands on treatment as well as providing home exercises to ensure carry over from any therapy, in conjunction with education and advice into their problem and it’s causes to increase insight and aid with self management of their condition, for more effective long term results.

Having attended a number of courses post graduation, Naomi is keen to keep up to date with current practice and widen her personal scope as a practitioner.

Naomi is available Tuesday and Thursday evenings 5pm-8pm.

Alistair Exon

Professional Memberships

Chartered Society of Physiotherapy (MCSP) 69293
Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) PH64934

Alistair graduated from Huddersfield University with a First Class Honours Degree in 2003.
He worked for 7 years within the NHS, primarily in Musculoskeletal clinics whilst gaining specialist knowledge in Emergency Care (A&E), Hand Therapy and Rheumatology. He moved in to Private Practice in 2009; joined the team in Nottingham in 2015 and has been a popular external lecturer on the MSC course in Sports Medicine at the University of Nottingham over a number of years.

Alistair has numerous post graduate qualifications; notably he is a member of the McKenzie Spinal Institute and has completed courses in Mechanical Diagnosis and Therapy including advanced spinal problem solving in the neck, mid and low back. He has also completed in-depth courses on assessment and rehabilitation of the shoulder and knee.

He is a qualified Kinetic Link Trainer which helps to develop core control and strength via simple functional based resistance training techniques. He holds a Level two award from the British Safety Council in Display Screen Equiptment (DSE) assessment; is a qualified Pilates instructor and has certification in Western Acupuncture (Dry needling).

Alistair is a keen runner and is as passionate about fitness as he is about his physiotherapy; he has completed two 50 mile ultra -marathons in the Lake District hills and thus, has a good understanding of pain!

You will find Alistair friendly and approachable and whilst he is a very ‘hands on’ therapist, he will tailor his sessions to reflect your individual requirements and tolerance levels.