Sports therapy

People of all ages and walks of life are taking up sport and are discovering the benefits on physical, psychological and social levels.

Physical improvement usually encourages greater effort in training and without access to professional services and back up, problems can develop.

Competitive sportsmen and women push themselves to extreme limits and so have special needs which must be taken into account when preventing injuries and providing fine tuning. A good therapist needs to understand the specific approach of sports massage so they can enable people to remain active and perform well.

"Sports Massage is proven to speed up recovery between sessions and from injuries."

This type of massage varies from:

• Pre-sports massage - preparing sportsmen/sportswomen before training sessions or tournaments, by warming and stretching the muscles, tendons and ligaments of the body.

• Post sports massage - this is performed after training or tournaments to help the body to recover, assists with the removal of lactic acid within the muscles, monitors stresses which may be building up in the body, and so warns against potential pain and injury.

• Sports injuries - this is more specific, massage is the most effective treatment for many types of injury.

• Helps recuperation after injury.

The types of injuries suffered by sports people do not differ from those in many other activities. If a muscle becomes strained, it matters little whether it is the result of digging in the garden, decorating, golfing, playing football, dancing on ice or lifting weights in the gym. The damage to the tissues is the same and so are the principle massage techniques. However, their application may be different.