Remedial massage is a soft tissue therapy that provides a remedy for soft tissue dysfunction. Soft tissue is defined as muscles, tendons, ligaments, facia, and the layers of tissue that comprise skin. Many chronic conditions and minor postural issues can be relieved through one or more remedial massage treatments.
Remedial Massage is Different
Many clients are surprised by their first experience of Remedial Massage because it is quite different from traditional forms of massage. Many mistakenly, including practitioners of massage confuse it with sports massage. Sports Massage is an application of massage techniques for sporting activities that can include the use of Remedial Massage techniques. Remedial Massage comprises of a range of techniques that provide remedies for soft tissue issues such as backache and muscle pain.
Pure Body Fix®
In 2019 we introduced Pure Body Fix® to help our clients better understand what Remedial Massage is within its wider context. The term remedial is not commonly used in everyday English and does not convey its meaning when associated with massage, i.e., to provide a remedy. Therefore, we created the term Pure Body Fix® to enable us to demonstrate the outcome of our treatments. It also allows our clients to book combined treatments to meet their specific needs, i.e., Remedial and Deep Tissue, Sports and Deep Tissue, or Sports and Remedial.
It was also obvious that many soft tissue problems were multiple causal, in that there are several factors that contribute to our current sense of wellbeing or condition. We all know someone who just bent over to pick up something light when their back “went”. So, a client would book an appointment because they have a bad back and need relief from the pain as well as a long-term solution to stop it reccuring. But things recure because their are a number of factors that contribute to the problem. We call that the presenting condition and the reason why they booked the appointment.
Presenting Condition – Diagram
Every presenting condition is made up of several contributing factors:
Immediate dysfunction this is what you feel are the symptom(s) or the reason for booking your massage. For example, you could be suffering from backpain or sciatica. While it could be an ache or pain, it could also be a reduction in movement or mobility.
Stress, anxiety, or sense of wellbeing, or how we feel in general about life, family and relationships at home, work or leisure can have a huge impact on how we feel and experience aches, pains, and injuries. Stress hormones can not only make us more vulnerable to injury, but studies have also shown that excess cortisol (the stress hormone) can also slow injury recovery.
Lifestyle impact on soft tissue. Everything we do has an impact on how we respond to our lifestyle. Obvious things include smoking and drinking, and most people know and understand their associated risks to health and wellbeing. But it’s not always obvious to make the link to how our aches and pains are due to lifestyle factors such as stress. It’s well publicised that lack of activity leaves us open to chronic diseases. But we also need to understand that lack of activity also reduces mobility. Lack of activity has been shown to make the symptoms of osteoarthritis worse. How we work, whether it’s physical labour, sitting at a desk or spending hours driving a vehicle, they all have a mechanical impact on our bodies that may lead to conditions like Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI).
Nutrition and diet have a major impact on how we feel. Pure Body Fix® is not a nutritional therapy. But we must consider the client’s nutritional health because of its impact on how they feel, either physically or mentally. Depending on age, lifestyle and physical activities, our nutritional requirements vary.
Historic chronic conditions. In other words, our bodies carry the wear and tear of our life journey. We carry the scars and marks of past trauma. Some conditions like arthritis and sciatica can take years to develop. Scars can develop adhesions, which in turn can impact on our mobility. Past trauma can also affect how we feel about pain and its severity.
A Holistic Approach
It’s by assessing the wider picture of your needs, Pure Body Fix® delivers more positive outcomes. By helping you the client understand the therapeutic journey; cause -> treatment -> aftercare, we will find better and more sustainable outcomes. So, massage is just one part of the bigger picture. Identifying the cause is crucial to working out your aftercare needs and may require some lifestyle adjustments and/or exercises to help prevent the problem or issue returning, or help in with minimising the impact of chronic conditions like arthritis
If you have recurring aches or pains, suffering long term pain, or troubled by reduced mobility, be kind to yourself and book a Pure Body Fix® remedial massage today.
