Sports Massage: Not Just for Athletes

The name sports massage makes it sound as though you should arrive wearing a race number or carrying a tennis racket.

You don't have to be an athlete to benefit from it. Sports massage is better understood as an approach to bodywork that considers movement, muscular demand, recovery, and function.

What makes sports massage different?

Rather than following the same routine for every client, sports massage tends to focus on the areas experiencing the greatest physical demand.

For a runner, that may mean the legs and hips.

For someone who lifts weights, it could be the shoulders, back, or legs.

For someone who spends eight hours working at a computer, the physical problem may look completely different—but repetitive muscular stress is still repetitive muscular stress.

The therapist adapts the work accordingly.

Sports massage doesn't have to be aggressive

Another misconception is that sports massage should hurt.

It doesn't.

Depending on the goal, a session may include deeper pressure, compression, stretching, movement, or more focused work on particular muscles. At other times, gentler techniques may be more appropriate. Pressure is a tool—not a measure of whether the massage is effective.

Before activity or after activity?

The approach can also change depending on what your body is doing. Someone preparing for physical activity has different needs from someone recovering from a demanding week of training or dealing with accumulated muscular fatigue. That's one reason a conversation with your therapist matters. What you've been doing can influence how the session is approached.

It's really about how you use your body

You don't have to consider yourself an athlete. You might play golf on weekends, work on your feet all day, lift weights several times a week, climb, run, cycle, garden, or simply have a physically demanding job. Your muscles don't particularly care whether you call it sport, exercise, work, or life.

At Wellness From Siam, sports massage is one of several techniques our therapists can draw from. Depending on what your body needs, a session may also incorporate deep tissue work, Thai techniques, assisted stretching, Ashiatsu, Swedish massage, or other approaches. The objective isn't to fit you into a massage category. It's to create the right session for the body that walked through the door.