First Experience with a Sports Massage

My ITB woes continued last Saturday at the Puma Night Run and made my visit to Johor Bahru the next day horrible. On the advice of a few runners, I decided to go for a sports massage. I am not a believer in massages but I had nothing to lose at this point besides S$95 for an hour’s treatment. I went to SportsRelief Therapy and was given a deep tissue massage for my legs and lower back. Here is how it went.

The therapist appeared to be very knowledgeable. She is a runner and must have dealt with a multitude of ITB cases. She zoomed in on the issue quickly and realised that my leg muscles were essentially in a lock up. While I am new to sports massage, I have to concur with this. I know that I am not flexible and my muscles are always rather stiff. My attempts at yoga led by my fiancee also exposed how inflexible and stiff I was. The therapist first loosened my glutes and hamstrings and this helped to relieve the ITB areas, which she meticulously addressed. The massage also covered the shins, calves, ankles and lower back. The therapist communicated well. She explained what she was doing in a manner that I could understand and always asked for feedback on how I was responding. Top notch service as it stands.

The massage did what it had to but the process was painful at times. I guess there is no escaping the pain. The first contact at each muscle group was the most painful stage. The pain subsides after repeated work especially after the muscles loosen up often with a audible “crack”. Most importantly, I felt a difference following the massage. The ITB pain left at least without being under running stress. The therapist told me I could try a run to see how it worked out but I decided against it given that this is a close to seven month long injury which would require more work.

There was no hard selling after the massage. She advised me to return and I agreed. For the amount of work done and the clear improvement, I had no complaints. I will return next week and update on how the process goes along. This gives me hope that I can finish this year with December’s Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon.