1 minute read –
The discomfort and pain you experience during a sports massage on the whole, means its working. While it may seem like your masseuse is trying to kill you (we aren’t I promise), it is an essential part of the process of removing knots, scar tissue and adhesions form the muscle. The aim here is not to purposely cause pain, any discomfort you feel will be helping your muscles. Generally the pain will be subjective so its best to speak to your masseuse during the treatment so he/she can adapt accordingly.
What is a muscle knot?
A muscle knot is where the muscle fibres have compressed together, normally to protect an area from further injury. They are caused by a multitude of ways including, bad posture, overuse of muscle, tension from mental or physical stress, direct injury e.g. strain or tear and prolonged sitting.
How to get rid of muscle knots?
Well unfortunately muscle knots tend to be tricky to get rid of without some sort of treatment. Self massage techniques like foam rolling and trigger points with a massage ball as well as stretching can help. From my experience though, you tend to either not put enough pressure when you do it yourself or don’t do it for long enough. With the help of a professional, they can find the knots and apply pressure to them to help relive the pain.
This leads me back to the title, does sports massage hurt? Short answer is yes, but depends on how bad the muscle knots are and what your pain tolerance is. With breathing techniques you can also help make the massage less painful. Also the more massages you have and the more you relax during the massage, the less painful it will be. If you would like to know more about sports massages and how to book one, please click the link HERE.