Massage is simply the manipulation of the soft tissues  of the body including muscles, tendons and ligaments. Remedial  massage can be used to prevent injury and rectify muscle  imbalances, which cause pain and discomfort or restrict body   movement.

The key to your pain relief is understanding the cause of your symptoms through holistic assessment, treating related contracted muscle and fascia and increasing your awareness of what you can do to contribute to your own health and well-being.

Deep Tissue Massage  Deep tissue massage treatment begins with slow, firm gliding pressure to restore normal length to contracted superficial Myofascial tissues, combined with post isometric relaxation (P.I.R) stretching toward the same end. Next, the muscle lesions and adhesions are treated with deep sometimes oscillating pressure. Then the deep muscle spasms are treated with deep, sustained static pressure until they release and regain their normal resting length.

The objective of Deep Tissue Massage is to identify the shortened muscles and fascia involved, as well as any muscle spasms and localized areas of tenderness. As an example, upper back pain is often caused by chronically shortened chest muscles (pectoralis major + minor) combined with spasm of deep back muscles (multifidus, rotatores.)

Sports Massage  The goal of sports massage is often to restore normal function to the athlete through identification of contracted tissues.

As an example, lateral knee pain may be caused by a chronically tight Iliotibial Band. Or, pain at the fibular head may be caused by a tight hamstring (Bicepts femoris.) Release of this tight musculature along with assisted stretching and massage can increase circulation and reduce metabolic waste.Marathon runners often receive regular massage as part of their overall maintenance to help relief tension in overloaded muscles before problems develop and to help maintainflexibility and reduce injuries.

Trigger Point Therapy  Myofacial trigger points are palpable, irritable muscle lesions usually within tight muscle bands that refer pain to other areas when pressure is applied. Trigger points are caused by stress, be it habitual postural stress, or the stress of physical or emotional trauma.

Treatment of trigger points consists of identifying the trigger points through palpation, followed by manual compression to remove excess metabolic waste and cross fiber friction to free adjacent muscle fibers followed by Post-Isometric Relaxation (P.I.R.) stretching to normalize shortened muscle fiber length.

Lymph Drainage Massage  Manual Lymphatic Drainage is a gentle but powerful technique, the aim of which is to accelerate Lymph flow through stimulation of Lymphangions and their relfex response. Lymphangions are the basic functional unit of the lymph vesssels - visualize a string of pearls, each pearl would be a lymphangion. The string represents a lymph vessel, when a lymphangion senses, through its reflex arc, that is filled with lymph fluid, it contracts to move the fluid along the lymph vessel.Fluid eventually rejoins your veinous system and the excess is removed by your kidneys. Lymph draingage helps in this manner to increase the rate of lymphanion contraction and lymph flow.

Please be aware that remedial massage is often vigerous and is very different to beauty therapy  massage which is is often superficial. Finally don't forget to drink plenty of water prior to your massage.