Birmingham, Tamworth and Solihull Sports Massage Therapists in decline

Birmingham Sports Massage, Solihull Sports Massage and Tamworth Sports Massage therapists are in decline it seems.

We seem to be flooding the workplace with substandard sports massage therapists who seem to think the whole purpose of the massage is to inflict pain on the paying patient. Why on earth do these massage therapists think that paying customers want painful treatments.

Many people have avoided sports massage because of painful treatments which has to be a concern for the profession. Sports Massage is many things, but it is not Swedish body massage with much more applied pressure. Both students and practitioners have been seen with huge grins on their faces whilst driving a sharp elbow into the client’s buttock and watching them squirm in pain, what is that all about?

Wouldn’t it be great to find someone who understands what clients want, wouldn’t it be great if the therapist had in depth knowledge of the body and knew about sports injury treatment’s.
Wouldn’t it be great if the client wasn’t subjected to torture and pain during the treatment.

Tamworth Sports Massage and Solihull Sports Massage therapists are now available at Atlas Sports Injury Clinics based in Tamworth, Staffordshire and Hockley Heath, Solihull, West Midlands nr Birmingham. Details can be viewed on the website www.solihullsportsinjuryclinic.co.uk

Deep soft tissue work can be applied without inflicting pain and the results are very effective in releasing tension and adhesions leaving you feeling as though you have had a proper massage.

Understanding soft tissue and being able to recognize the tone of muscles is vital for a good sports massage practitioner. Giving a good rubdown is simply not good enough for sports men and women who need help instead of bruising.

Proper in depth training from experienced working lecturers is a bonus if you can find one. It is not uncommon for tutors to be recruited having just passed the sports massage course and then asked to teach the subject to the following years students. This is not acceptable and leads to substandard teaching resulting in poor quality sports massage graduates

Sports Massage can be divided into 3 main areas

Pre-sport, Post- sport and Remedial. All of these can be employed successfully and are used at different times depending on what is required. Tissues feel totally different before and after exercise and should be treated differently.

Pre-sport massage involves preparing the athlete for exercise. Warming and stretching of muscles relevant to their particular activity is helpful in avoiding injuries and preparing target muscles for work. Deep tissue massage is not required in this situation and massage techniques designed to increase blood flow into the target muscles is the objective. Often seen to be brisk superficial massage techniques which stimulate blood flow and adjacent nerves.

Post- sport massage involves returning the exercised muscles back to pre-exercise state and removing any lactic acid and waste products generated from intensive exercise. This can help prevent muscle soreness in the days following intense exercise activity. The technique should be slower and rhythmical and once again not deep tissue work. The muscles may well be sore and tender with stiffness once cooled down.

Remedial massage this involves specific muscles which you would target for individual treatment. This may be through a specific injury, identification of tightness or adaptive shortening.
Remedial means “to put things right again” and may involve acute or chronic soft tissue damage.
Knowledge of soft tissue repair process is important if you want to promote accurate more effective speedy healing times. There are many skills which can enhance your ability to treat soft tissue injuries and many more can be added to the list below.

• Muscle energy techniques
• Positional release
• Connective tissue manipulation
• Trigger Point therapy

It seems a shame that more students seem to want more knowledge about sports injuries and neglect to see the demand for a good bodywork soft tissue therapist. If you are good at your craft you will never be out of work. We will never stop learning, but first let’s try and walk before we learn to run


Perhaps one day we will get some pride back in the sports massage profession and embrace the quality training establishments who endeavor to produce good quality students. Regulation of the sports massage profession is a good idea, in order to standardise training and act as a quality control for therapists ensuring they are adequately trained and insured.