Why I never give short massage appointments

It’s really important to me that I do a good job, working to give you the very best massage experience I possibly can.

I’d seriously be doing you a disservice and wasting your money if I booked you in for a short 30 minute appointment.

That’s not to discredit other massage therapists in Torbay who do short appointments - not at all.

But what it is saying, is that for me to give you the absolute best service I can, I simply cannot do that in just 30 minutes.

That’s because when you book in for a massage treatment / soft tissue therapy appointment with me, you are getting a service which looks at the whole picture, not just ‘your shoulder hurts, so I’ll rub your shoulder’.

During an appointment with me you can expect the following:

We’re going to talk a lot. To understand you, your medical history, your pain, what your pain is stopping you from doing and where you’d like to get to. And so you can ask me any questions you have, feel at ease with me as your therapist and really know that I’m on your team.

We’re going to look at a lot of factors which can influence your pain levels, and talk about all the small day to day things you can do to tip the scales in your favour when it comes to how much pain you’re in. But we’re going to work together on these one thing at a time to set you up for success not overwhelm!

We’re probably going to look at how you move to see if there’s any movement which is restricted or causing you pain, so we can begin to get you moving well again. We’ll also look at where your pain is, areas which could be compensating and how it affects the rest of your body.

We might also see how your balance is doing too, and understand the importance of good balance as we age, and the things we can do to influence this.

We’ll run through the treatment plan and make sure you’re happy with everything before we get onto the hands on work.

We’ll get you on the massage couch and make sure you’re in a really comfortable position, adjusting anything you need to make it just right.

Then the treatment begins.

Hands on treatment could begin with some stretches, joint mobilisations, muscle energy techniques, gentle traction, rocking/pulsing, myofascial release, trigger point release.

All that’s before we even begin with apply lotion for the traditional hands on massage which will be completely tailored to you and include a mix of tools from across a broad range of advanced techniques from sports/remedial massage, deep tissue massage, soft tissue therapy, Swedish massage, Indian head massage and more.

Then after the massage treatment…

Then after the massage treatment we’ll talk about the the things you can do at home inbetween appointments to help maintain and improve on your progress.

This can be anything from tailored lifestyle tweaks for example drinking enough water or prioritising sleep; to specific stretches or strengthening exercises to target specific issues; to more general exercise advice such as

how to safely increase your exercise levels to help you reach your Goals.

So, you can see an aweful lot goes into your appointment, I don’t just ‘rub where it hurts’. And this takes time to do well and effectively,

But also most importantly, to help you understand, Manage and improve your pain.