How often should I get a Remedial Massage/ Myotherapy Treatment?
It's a question we get asked all the time.
This guide aims to help give insight into the factors that you and your therapist can use to determine the frequency of your treatment.
First of all there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ recipe for this question. This is meant to be a guide. A lot of factors play into how often you should be getting a treatment, including but not limited to:
· General tissue tone and level of flexibility
· Current severity injury/ pain/ level of tightness
· How quickly your body responds to treatment.
· Compliance to massage therapist or myotherapist recommendations
· Pre-race or major event participation
· Level of physical activity/ exercise including training load/ training duration/ training frequency
· Occupation and/ or study load
· General health and wellbeing, stress level, underlying conditions
Again! - THIS IS ONLY MEANT TO BE A GUIDE!
After your first myotherapy or remedial massage appointment your therapist will discuss their recommendations on how often you should be getting treatments, based on their findings as well as what is the plan moving forward.
Factors to think about that influence frequency of remedial massage/ myotherapy treatment:
a) General Tissue Tone and Level of Mobility
Are you stiff or are you flexi?
Can you easily touch your toes or are you laughing at the thought doing it?
Everyone has a different level of flexibility and it is not always related to your muscles. It’s why some people can bend themselves in half, without trying. While others spend pain-staking hours doing stretching, with minimal change.
Your resting level of flexibility (mobility) will determine how often you need treatment. If you are hypermobile or on the hypermobility spectrum (really flexible), you will generally need less frequent treatment and potentially more strength training. If you are really stiff, with low flexibility or high muscle tone, your therapist will recommend more frequent appointments.
For example (and not taking into account any other factors) the difference might look like flexi - 1/ month – 6 weeks vs someone who's stiff with high muscle tone - 1/ week or fortnight until change is noticeable.
b) Current Severity of Injury/ Pain/ Level of Tightness
This a tricky one to determine because it is entirely dependent on the level on injury and or the reason for the pain or tightness. Generally the worse you are, the more frequently we will need to see you at the start.
It is not uncommon for us to ask you to come back for a few sessions in close succession (4 days or 1 per for a few weeks until we see a change). This help to get you on top of the injury/ pain/ tightness quickly.
Often if we leave it a whole month or a few weeks at the start, the changes that we have initially made will subside and you could find you are back to square one every time you come in.
The aim is always to spread your appointments out as soon as possible, whilst still maintaining the changes we create in treatment.
Injury Rehab:
- We work closely with many allied health professionals, who help you recover from injury. Often they will give you a plan including specific exercises to help you recover faster and/or return to sport.
- In order for your muscles to grow and strengthen microdamage needs to occur. This can cause your muscles will tighten up.
- Getting regular massage, particularly in the early stage of rehab can help maintain or return your range of motion faster and help you recover quicker. (This can look like 1/ week or fortnight with the aim to push the frequency out as you progress your rehab/ return to sport)
c) How Quickly your Body Responds to Treatment
Results and changes to your symptoms are the key drivers behind what we do as remedial massage therapist and myotherapist. The faster we can create change, the faster we spread your appointments out.
Each body is different and will respond differently, both in treatment and afterwards. It’s why initially, we will often say for a person to come back in a week or two, before trying to spread out your appointments.
We want to know how your body responded to treatment, the effectiveness of the treatment to create changes to your symptoms, as well as if and how long it took for your symptoms to come back.
d) Compliance to your Remedial massage/ Myotherapists Recommendations
Gold Class Standard:
- Is you doing all the recommendations your No More Knots Remedial Massage therapist or Myotherapist tells you to do between treatments!
- You already have a self-care/ management routine in place that sees you doing regular mobility and/or strength work.
- THIS person is going to need to come back to see us FAR less often than someone who does nothing between appointments!
The more you do! The less you have to see us!
e) Prerace or Major Event
This is really interesting because it changes based on the sport you do!*
For Instance Pre-Race:
- Distance events, (Rowing/ Swimming/ Running and/ or Cycling) – you want great range of motion to help improve your efficiency and power over time. Having a massage closer to your event makes more sense (2 – 4 days out).
- Multi-day Event- (Eg Swimming/ Rowing Comp) – there is evidence that massage improves your perceived pain, improves recovery and power for up to 72 hours after treatment. Massage is recommended for recovery in multi-day events.
- Sprinting- You want a certain level of recoil/ tightness in your muscles to help you go faster! However there is a fine line because you still want good range of motion throughout the joints! (4 or 5 days out from competition)
- Boxing/ Contact Spots– you want a certain level of muscle tightness to help protect your muscles when you are hit. (No closer than 3 or 4 days out)
*Please note– Getting your first ever massage, right before an event is not recommended.
- You don’t know how your body will respond to treatment. If you are only planning on getting massage pre-event, we recommend getting one a one week or two before, so you know how you responds to treatment. Then you can plan when to get your treatment right before your event to get the best outcome.
During / After An Event:
- There is evidence to show that massage improves delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) as well as your recovery in general. Having a massage during your event if it is a multiway event, or a day or two after your event is recommended to improve recovery time.
f) Level of Physical Activity/ Exercise
Based on level of physical activity alone - if you have a low level of physical activity you are most likely going to need treatment less often (1/ month – 6 weeks) than someone who is training 4 – 5 times a week or more. (1/ week, 1/ fortnight or 3 weeks)
If you are getting back into exercise, initially increasing the frequency of your treatment at the start is recommended.
Training load/ training duration/ training frequency
If you are training for an event your training will usually be in blocks of intensity (light, medium, hard). If you increase the intensity/ frequency/ duration of your training for a period of time eg a camp, a hard training block or getting back into training after a break - you might need to factor in a few more massages or some more time for self-care.
As a (VERY GENERAL) rule and based on level activity alone:
- 1 – 2 sessions of moderate/ intense exercise a week (1/ month – 8 weeks)
- 3 – 5 sessions of moderate/ intense exercise a week (1/ fortnight – 1/ month)
- 6+ sessions of moderate/ intense exercise a week (1 per week to once a fortnight)
- Intense training period/ block (1 per week is not unreasonable)
g) Occupation/ Study Load:
There are a number of factors to think about here.
If you have a very physical job or are on your feet all day the same rules apply to muscle load as that of performing a week’s training.
- If you’re a builder and are on the tools all day, it is not unreasonable to be getting a weekly or fortnightly massage. Particularly if you add training on top of this. Your body is your income. So you need to look after it and make sure it doesn’t get injured.
Equally, sitting at a desk for work or study isn’t great either.
- If you are doing long hours for a period of time eg exams or a working to a deadline, factoring in slightly more frequent massages can help prevent tightness and pain getting in the way of your ability to concentrate. This is particularly important if you are exercising at the same time.
Muscles tighten up when they are held in the same position for long periods of time – for example sitting in front of the computer. Your joints can also stiffen up. When this occurs and you then go out and exercise, you run the risk of injury, pain and or increased levels of tightness.
Regardless of whether or not you are getting massage or myotherapy, this is a reason why it is essential to get up regularly and move around during work and study.
h) General health and wellbeing/ stress and/ or underlying conditions
Stress Management -
- Massage is a great stress reliever. There is evidence to show it deceases the level of cortisol (a stress hormone) in the body.
If you are going through a period of high stress or have a high stress job, having a regular massage as part of your self-care plan is a great idea. This is going to depend entirely on you.
We have patients that see as weekly, others monthly or every 8 weeks. Purely for stress management.
Pre Existing Conditions –
Unfortunately some musculoskeletal and other conditions of the body mean that regular treatment, as part of a symptom management plan is necessary. This is also true if a patient is waiting for joint surgery, massage may be part of their regular pain/ symptom relief.
If a condition is ongoing, we often start with a few treatments in close succession and measure the massage’s effectiveness in changing symptoms. (For example 1 per week/ fortnight then reassess.)
We then try to move your appointments further and further until we find that balance point where we are keeping on top of your symptoms but not seeing you too often (for example one for 3 – 6 weeks).
Each case in different and often required a multimodality approach.
Summary:
As you can see there are a myriad of factors that go into how often you should be getting massage:
- General tissue tone and level of flexibility
- Current severity injury/ pain/ level of tightness
- How quickly your body responds in and to treatment.
- Compliance to your massage therapist myotherapist's recommendations
- Pre-race, during or after a major event
- Level of physical activity/ exercise including training load/ training duration/ training frequency
- Occupation and/or study load
- General health and wellbeing, stress level, underlying conditions
These all play a part in working out that what is best for you.
The key is to work with your therapist, make sure are monitoring how your body responds to massage and myotherapy treatment and do your self-care plan or post- treatment recommendations! We recommend testing the frequency of your massages. Try having them in slightly closer succession or further apart. You’ll soon work out what works best for you and your body.
If you are wondering how often you need treatment and still feel like you need more help, feel free to give us a call or book in with one of our friendly and experienced team members.
Book Now or give us a call at our Taringa, Greenslopes, Newmarket clinics.
Call us at Taringa 07 3720 8881
Call us at Greenslopes 07 3891 6555
Call us at Taringa 07 3356 1111
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