What to look for in a sports massage therapist

 

New York City can be an intense and high-energy place. It attracts similar sorts of people.

Everyday you see thousands of runners and cyclists making their way up and down the West Side highway training for races. There are thousands of professional dancers performing in the various musical theatre venues in the city each day as well. Physically active types are a big part of the NYC population. Even the folks you see putting in long hours at their desks during working hours often leave to go workout right after work. They swing kettlebells at their Crossfit gym or do handstands at their yoga studio. With all the athletes in the city, it’s no surprise that working with a top notch sports massage therapist is what many of our clients are searching for. 

But what should you look for in a sports massage therapist?

What is sports massage and how can it benefit you?

Before looking for specific qualities in a sports massage therapist, it’s helpful to understand what to expect from a session. Sports massage can comprise any of the manual techniques that a licensed massage therapist is trained in. These techniques are performed with the intention of addressing your specific concerns around your active and/or physically demanding lifestyle. 

Often, our athlete clients will come in with an acute injury they sustained while practicing their activity. Such as an ankle sprain or a torn rotator cuff. The therapist will then work to help alleviate pain. Sports massage can decrease inflammation, assist with proper scar tissue formation, and increase range of motion or stability at the injured joint. 

Other times the concern is minimizing delayed onset muscle soreness during peak training times for a specific event. Or promoting recovery after an event like a race or competition. Frequently, an active person is simply in pain or is having trouble performing at their desired level. And is looking for someone to help them determine the root cause of the dysfunction. These are all issues that our staff at Bodyworks DW can help you tackle.

For More Information: Sports Massage in Midtown

Massage for Arthritis: Everything You Need To Know About the Benefits

 

David Weintraub, LMT and owner of Bodyworks DW, writes about the benefits of massage therapy for arthritis.

Arthritis is a scary word for most folks. It sounds like some kind of point of no return as we get older. Once we have it, the thinking goes, we just have to suffer with it. However, the reality is a lot more complex than that. The good news is that there are many ways to relieve the pain. Both at home, and with integrative medicine such as licensed massage therapy for arthritis. Getting massage therapy in New York for arthritis can be especially helpful. New York State has the highest education requirements for licensed massage therapy of any state. This includes hundreds of hours of training in medical-massage.

What is Arthritis and how can Massage for Arthritis Help?

Any time that you see “itis” attached to a medical term it means “inflammation of.” Arth is short for arthron which is Latin for “joint.” Arthritis is simply a catch-all phrase referring to inflammation of a joint or joints.

For More Information: Massage therapy in Midtown

Shoulder Pain: What’s Causing Yours and How Massage Therapy can Help

 

Shoulder pain is one of the most common issues people face today. The shoulder is a very complex set of muscles and bones designed for a large variety of movements. In order to gain that freedom of movement, evolution had to sacrifice some stability. This makes shoulders especially vulnerable to injury. Both impact injuries such as a torn rotator cuff, and overuse injuries such as a pinched nerve. Thankfully, shoulder pain massage can work wonders on many types of shoulder pain.

How Your Shoulders Work – Two Joints, Not Just One!

The shoulder actually consists of two distinct joints, the shoulder joint and the shoulder girdle.

The Shoulder Joint

The arm bone (humerus) connected to socket of the shoulder blade makes up the shoulder joint. The shoulder joint allows for movement of the arm in many directions. All while keeping the shoulder blade locked in place. Your shoulder joint can move your arm forwards, backwards, sideways. As well as rotating your arm in the socket.

There are many different muscles that attached to the humerus and allow for these movements. The pectoral major, latissimus, and deltoid create forwards, backwards, and sideways movements of the arm. The rotator cuff set of muscles creates rotational movements. Contrary to popular belief there is no “rotator cuff muscle.” The rotator cuff actually refers to a set of 4 different muscles: supraspinatus, infraspinatus, teres major, and subscapularis.

For More Information: Massage in New York 

Neck Pain Massage Therapy: Designing Effective Lasting Treatments

 

Why effective neck pain massage therapy shouldn’t focus exclusively on your neck

Neck pain is a very common issue. Our phones and devices are constantly pulling our attention. Our head follows our eyes putting us in a “head forward” position. This pulls the muscles in the back of your neck into a constant stretch. And makes them work extra hard to fight the weight of your head. Muscles hate being stretched and working hard. So they yell at you with achy pain. Thankfully, neck pain massage in New York and can be an effective and lasting treatment…when done properly.

Does this sound like you?

a) Sitting at a desk staring at your screen for 40+ hours a week
b) Looking down at your phone multiple times a day
c) Reading your tablet in bed while propping your head up on a pillow

All of these habits tighten your anterior neck muscles (the ones in front). While simultaneously pulling on the posterior neck muscles (the ones in back).

For More Information: Neck Pain Massage Therapy

Can massage therapy help with low back pain in the long term?

 

Low back pain: a common complaint

One of the most frequent complaints we hear about from our clients is low back pain. Some clients present with episodes of pain that are acute, which means they came on suddenly. Others describe pain that is chronic: it’s been there on and off for months or even years. And they may go so far as to identify with the pain, i.e. “I’ve got a bad back.” Either way, it can be debilitating and prevent you from fully enjoying life. 

How and why does low back pain happen?

Low back pain can range from a dull ache and tightness to sharp spasms that make movement next to impossible. You might recall a specific incident, like the time you hoisted a heavy suitcase into a taxi after a flight. Or you are not quite sure how or when the pain came on. Sometimes clients come to us with a diagnosis and imaging from a physician. And a medical history that may even include surgical interventions for structural conditions of the spine. More often than not, however, your pain is unknown in cause.

For More Information: Low back pain Massage

Want to hear some good COVID-19 massage news? Massage Therapy with safety protocols is SAFE!

 

Hi! So, we have been open now since July 6th and steadily rebuilding our team. The first couple of weeks felt pretty stressful. We have a whole list of new safety protocols and cleaning procedures to practice. What once felt routine and easy (all the things that happen before and after your massage) has took a while to adjust to, but is now the new normal. It feels good to be able to share some good COVID-19 massage news. Whew!

Our track record over the past 4 months is now over 1,500 appointments since reopening with zero issues of covid transmission. Therefore, I feel that I can comfortably say that massage therapy is a safe activity with our safety protocols securely in place. Thank you to all NYC’ers for taking masks and social distancing seriously! All of our hard work is what’s allowing businesses to stay open and for us specifically to be able to offer medical massage in New York.

With the recent uptick in cases in NYC, we are re-instituting mandatory PCR covid testing for our therapists. Since we reopened, I myself have had 7 tests, all were negative. As long as testing is readily available, therapists will test every two weeks even though it’s not required by NYS. You can view the therapists’ test results here.

Great COVID-19 Massage News: Bodyworks DW has moved ahead to our “Stage 2” Reopening

We’ve had months of practicing our new massage safety measures and things are running smoothly. So, we have moved ahead from our “soft” reopening to our “stage 2” reopening. This means we are starting to bring more therapists back to work. And using all of our treatment rooms. And soon, bringing the front desk back to the office.

Part of our confidence stems from knowing that it’s not just our studio that has stayed covid-19 free. I’ve spoken with numerous other studio owners both in NYC, and in upstate NY. Thankfully, I haven’t heard about anyone running into problems with covid. That means that hundreds of therapists have been working on thousands of clients with no issues or infections.

So, if massage therapy was going to be a source of transmissions, we’d have heard something by now. We haven’t, which is great COVID-19 massage news!

That doesn’t mean it’s impossible for transmissions to happen. A particular therapist in NYS (not at our studio!) could get lax with safety or be skirting the guidelines. Or a particular therapist could get lax with precautions outside of work and get the virus. But if massage therapy in general under the new guidelines was creating viral spread we would have heard about it by now from contact tracing programs. It’s wonderful to be able to say that medical massage in Midtown and Fidi at our studios is safe!

Massage Therapy Safety Protocols: A Quick Review

A lot of the changes we have made have been more on our side, including following CDC cleaning guidelines, setting up hand sanitizer stations, changing how we were storing linens, etc. Most of those are happening behind the scenes and don’t really change how you, as clients, experience getting a massage. We want to be transparent about them so that you can trust that we are keeping our studios clean. But in terms of what you actually “need to know” there are only really a few main changes.

For More Information: Massage Therapy New York

How has sports massage in NYC benefited our clients? Part 1: Massage for Crossfit Injuries

 

Competitive athlete? Weekend warrior? Recreational fitness enthusiast? At Bodyworks DW, we work with a wide variety of active individuals. Our therapists provide custom-designed sports massage for crossfit sessions focused on helping you maximize your activity enjoyment. This can include sessions for injury recovery, injury prevention, tune-ups and maintenance. Sports massage in NYC for active people and athletes is hardly a luxury – it’s an investment!

Sports massage for crossfit provides targeted, therapeutic treatment tailored to the biomechanics and physical needs of the athlete. In other words, it’s not going to be like your typical fluff n’ buff spa massage  You’re going to be moving around a bit for analysis. You and your therapist will be working together on increasing range of motion and unwinding injuries. And you’re going to get some homework!

Curious how a sports massage for crossfit injuries in NYC might work for you? We’ve taken some of our most common client-athlete cases and given you a run-down of how a sports massage could benefit each one. Keep reading more to dive in!

Update August 2020: Sports massage for athletes is especially important right now after months of COVID-19 shutdowns! We’ve all been trying to exercise via Zoom in ways that we aren’t used to and without the ability of trainers to give us hands-on adjustments to form and posture. Most of us are feeling more pain and stress than we are used to and could use a tune up 

All-Around Athletes: CrossFitter (CrossFit, Boot Camp)

The CrossFit community is known for its high-intensity, highly variable workouts. These incorporate anything from gymnastics to Olympic weightlifting to aerobic conditioning. In particular, CrossFit places a high demand on the shoulders. There are a lot of overhead movements. And also plenty of movements that require quite a bit of shoulder stability AND mobility. We get a lot of clients coming in for sports massage for CrossFit with shoulder injuries from pushing a bit too much too soon. 

Shoulder stability and mobility is a complex interaction between the scapular-thoracic interface and the glenohumeral (GH) joint. The scapulae (shoulder blades) sit near the upper half and outside portions of the back of the rib cage. The GH joint (or shoulder joint) is at the side of your upper arm. It’s where your arm attaches to your shoulder. Both have to work together to keep your entire upper body properly positioned when doing any overhead movement. 

For More Information: Sports massage NYC

How to get a great massage in New York that exceeds your expectations

 

Satisfaction in life has mostly to do with things turning out about how we expect, or better. When things happen below our expectations, we tend to be dissatisfied. I train my industry leading massage therapists at Bodyworks DW on intake and outtake with new clients. A lot of that training goes into how to help clients have realistic goals and expectations for a medical massage in New York. In general, that means helping some clients realize that massage has a lot more to offer than simply relaxation and stress relief. And also helping other clients realize that for most pain issues it takes more than one session to completely relieve their issue. 

Massage in New York can help relieve pain for the long term

If your experience of massage is limited to the occasional hotel spa massage while on vacation… You likely view it as a form of relaxation and stress relief. And no more. If you are in real pain, you’ll go to a chiropractor, physical therapist, or straight to the hospital. And for most massage therapists working at a hotel spa, you are not wrong to think of massage in this limited way. The training requirements for massage therapists vary greatly from state to state. Not to mention country to country. 

For example, here are the training requirements for 4 popular vacation states, and the New York requirements:

• Florida – 500 hours and NCETMB or MBLEx
• California – 500 hours and MBLEx or NCBTMB
• Virginia – 500 hours and MBLEx
• Texas – 500 hours and MBLEx or NCETMB
• New York – 1000 hours and state exam

MBLEx is the “massage and bodywork licensing exam” and is used by many states in the US. NCETMB is the “National Certification Exam for Therapeutic Massage & Bodywork” test. Both are multiple-choice question tests of a massage therapist’s knowledge. This includes anatomy, technique, and professional ethics. 

For More Information:  Deep tissue massage in midtown 

How Often Should I Get a Massage?

 

In the often hectic & stressful environment that is NYC, having a self-care plan or routine in place is key. A good self care plan can greatly aid in reducing the physical and mental effects of this stress. Deciding to integrate massage therapy into your self-care routine often begs the question: “how often should I come in for a massage?” There is no one-size fits all answer, but here are some general guidelines depending on your lifestyle and health. Hopefully, these will help you determine an effective frequency to keep you pain free!

General Recommendations: How Often Should I Get a Massage?

First rule: Don’t wait for a crisis! Start adding massage therapy to your routine before you get injured. You’ll need to come far less often and also vastly improve your ability to prevent future injury.

For any actual pain symptoms, we recommend a series of massage therapy sessions with no more than 2 weeks between sessions. Depending on the severity of your pain and the causes the series will be anywhere from 3-8 sessions.

Once you are no longer experiencing pain, you can switch to a maintenance cycle of massage sessions. This is important to keep the pain from coming back. For people who work highly stressful jobs or work out hard regularly, we recommend a maintenance massage every 2-4 weeks. For the rest of you, a maintenance massage every 6-12 weeks usually does the trick of keeping you pain free!

For More Information: How Often Should I Get a Massage?

Doing Physical Therapy? Massage Therapy Can Improve Results!

 

7 Reasons why this powerful combination works

Pain sucks. As a massage therapist, I would know. Almost everyone who comes to see me does so because they’re in pain! Many times, they are already seeing a physical therapist and not entirely happy with the results. What many don’t realize is that the combination of physical therapy and massage can give greater results than either modality on it’s own. 

Most of the time, my clients have such a powerful response to massage therapy they don’t need additional therapies. However, that isn’t always the case. I always look for clues that indicate I may need to refer a client to another practitioner, such as a physical therapist. 

Update September 2020: Sometimes those clues are less about what the “best” course of treatment would be. And more about finding a way to help a client make their budget work. PT is covered by insurance far more often than massage therapy is (for now). Sometimes, I think a combination of PT and massage will work as well as massage on it’s own. If so, I will often recommend a client work with a PT 1-2 times a week and with me once every 2-4 weeks.

The PT will help the client make small but steady gains. In my sessions, I’ll then focus on making bigger leaps. Assuming the PT sessions are covered by insurance, the client spends less money overall and arrives at a pain free place. It just might take a little bit longer to get there. You can find several great PT’s that we send clients to on our colleagues page!

For More Information: Massage Therapist In NYC

Our Top 5 Tips to Avoid Text Neck Pain!

 

The perils of “always on” technology:

Okay, so your “text neck” probably won’t actually kill you (unless you are texting and driving). However, it’s becoming increasingly likely that at some point in the next 5-10 years of tech use, you’ll develop a repetitive stress disorder. So we’ve compiled some tips for text neck to help your phone becoming a pain in the neck!

The phrase carpal tunnel syndrome (wrist pain) has been part of the collective conscious for several decades. It’s so common as a disrupter of productivity that it has spawned an entire industry of ergonomics solutions. These range from special keyboards to Star Trek styled full desk/monitor set ups. All keep you at your desk longer making trades, typing contracts, writing legal memos.

And then the 2000’s came along. Most of us jumped all in with smartphones and laptops and tablets.

Update September 2020: So now we’ve all got Zoom issues too! Not quite the same as text neck as we don’t have to look down. But a lot of folks are complaining about headaches and TMJ from so many meetings staring at a screen. All the more reason to play with strategies to lessen screen time throughout the rest of your day! In addition, masks are vitally important from a safety perspective…and also are contributing to some jaw, neck, and head tension. On the plus side, covid massage safety protocols are working great! So getting a neck pain massage in Midtown or Fidi to help is totally safe!

Suddenly we could be productive all the time.

Standing on the subway platform?

Let me check my email.

Taking the train in from CT?

Let me just go over those sales reports.

Date just went to the bathroom?

Let me text my assistant to make sure I’m set up for tomorrow’s board meeting.

Unfortunately, there are costs to constant device use that might change your mind about your phone and tablet.

Looking down at our phone, tablet, or laptop, pulls our head forward and down. This imbalances all the muscles holding up your head (ahem… text neck). These imbalances can cause any and all of the following:

• neck pain
• shoulder pain
• TMJ
• headaches
• low back pain
• carpal tunnel syndrome
• anxiety
• low energy
• depression
• memory loss

For More Information: Neck Pain Massage in New York 

Massage for Sports Injuries: What is Scar Tissue and How Can Massage Help As We Age?

When were your first sports injuries?

If you are into sports now, odds are you started playing team sports when you were young. I remember my first soccer tryout at 9. I also remember my first sprained ankle from getting slide tackled at 11. There were a lot more sports injuries where that came from between then and now. Soccer, track, cross country, cycling, swimming, and later aikido. And that one ill fated parkour class during which I sprained my ankle. I wish I had known about massage therapy for sports injuries a lot earlier!

Along the way I’ve sprained both ankles more than once. And severely torn a hamstring muscle twice. I’ve smashed fingers and toes, and torn a rotator cuff. I’ve gotten a bone spur on my wrist, had shin splints, plantar fasciitis, hip pain, low back pain, and herniated a disc in my neck.

How I’ve kept active despite these injuries

To keep moving I’ve had a lot of bodywork, acupuncture, physical therapy, and chiropractic work since my mid 20’s. Without it, I’d be taped together with duct tape just to function. And probably would have needed a few different surgeries (currently surgery free at 48).

Like most of you, I’ve got the scars to prove my sports history. Unfortunately, as I get older, all of these old sports injuries make it even more likely that I’ll re-injure myself. So I’ve learned the hard way to be more cautious and create a regular self-care routine.

For More Information:  Sports Massage In NYC

Our New 1-on-1 Virtual Wellness Sessions

We closed our studios last week in response to the NYS on Pause effort to flatten the curve and save lives during the coronavirus outbreak. We have to admit, it’s been weird not being able to practice massage therapy and help all of you with pain and stress management. So we’ve decided to offer 1-on-1 virtual wellness and self-care consultations with our therapists!

What does a video self care consultation look like?Think of them as an extension of the time we take with each client after a massage. You know, where we check in with your posture, give you some homework and small awareness exercises, stretches to practice, etc. All of the things we offer to you to help you get through the time in between massage sessions and keep pain from coming back. We’re offering virtual self-care practices to help reduce the pain and stress you’re dealing with during these uncertain times 🙂

In these new 1-on-1 video visits for pain and stress management you’ll have time to really learn and master these self care skills. We’ll have time to cover much more of the following and in more depth:

• Stretches to help you with specific pain

• Postural awareness

• Breathing exercises

• Stress reduction practices

• Ergonomics evaluations of your newly enforced home office space

• Self Massage techniques using balls and rollers (and your own elbow)

• Support in building a new self-care routine based around being at home

• Restorative Yoga poses

• At home pilates exercises

• Ortho-bionomy

• Strength Training and movement work

• Life coaching

• Meditation

Many of our therapists practice multiple disciplines and can teach extended skills such as:

For More Information: Video Self care consultation

INJURY RELIEF VIDEOS on BWDW TV

Sometimes injuries happen. And in these times, it’s difficult to know what the best solution is. Our subscription library has a variety of injury relief videos with targeted self-massage techniques for specific ailments.

We cover a lot of areas prone to injury. And some techniques will require use of your own hands, but others can be achieved using foam rollers, rubber balls, and other tools. We have programs for everything from:

• ankle sprains
• carpal tunnel syndrome
• self massage for neck pain
• self massage for back pain
• self massage for hip pain
• pain from sitting
• and more!

A Sample of Injury Relief Videos in the Library

• Pain Relief From Sitting – This video includes foam rolling and yoga mat stretches to relieve pain in the back and hips from sitting more than we’re used to.
• Headache and Allergy Relief- In this video you’ll find helpful techniques to loosen the nasal cavity to improve breathing and prevent headaches.
• Mobilization & Self Massage for Foot Ankle- This video contains self-massage techniques and stretches to mobilize the foot and ankle to prevent injury and relieve pain.

For More Information: Self-massage for neck pain

Winter & Workouts = Shoulder Pain! Here’s How to Fix It with Massage for Shoulder Pain!

Your Shoulders and Winter are not good friends…

Have you booked a massage for shoulder pain session yet this winter? If not, you’ll probably feel like we are psychics about how your shoulders are feeling right about now…

It’s that most wonderful time of year…okay, actually it’s not all that wonderful right now.

The holidays are over, it’s real cold, and your are deep into new year projects, stress, and pressure.

And we’ve still got several weeks to go 😬🤒

Add in indoor exercise to that (weightlifting, yoga, boxing, Crossfit) and you’ve got a perfect recipe for shoulder pain and injuries…..

Winter Shoulder Pain Recipe

• 1/4 cup “lifting shoulders due to cold”

• 1 cup “stressing at work” which engages our fight/flight response and lifts the shoulders

• 1 tablespoon “indoor exercise” which impacts shoulders more intensely (due to the other above ingredients)…

This recipe leads to overuse injuries such as rotator cuff tears, biceps tendonitis, and bursitis. 

What you get when this cake is baked is “I don’t know what happened….but my right (or left) shoulder just started hurting…..HELP!”

Shoulder Pain in Winter: What YOU can do about it

If you haven’t gotten to the pain level yet, congrats!

If you don’t want to get there, come see us for massage therapy for shoulder pain (or any other pains you are dealing with). In the meantime, the following will absolutely help to prevent further injury:

Invest in a good winter coat, hat, scarf (no, really)

• Fashion is cool and all…and usually cold too. You may not like wearing a parka, or messing up your hair with a hat, but your shoulders will thank you if you are warm enough.
• Your body is dealing with cold that it’s not insulated against.
• Our nervous system is hardwired to “protect the important bits” (ie your head and your trunk where all of your important organs are).
• It raises the arms and shoulders in a self hug to bring more body heat to your brain (the most important bit) and lungs.
• This is brain stem level instinctual….if your body is cold enough to be scared of hypothermia it will raise your shoulders no matter how much you want them not to.

For More Information: Shoulder Pain Massage

How to get a great 60 minute massage in New York that exceeds your expectations

Satisfaction in life has mostly to do with things turning out about how we expect, or better. When things happen below our expectations, we tend to be dissatisfied. I train my industry-leading massage therapists at Bodyworks DW on intake and outtake with new clients. A lot of that training goes into how to help clients have realistic goals and expectations for a medical massage in New York. In general, that means helping some clients realize that massage has a lot more to offer than simply relaxation and stress relief. And also helping other clients realize that for most pain issues it takes more than one session to completely relieve their issue.

Massage in New York can help relieve pain for the long term

If your experience of massage is limited to the occasional hotel spa massage while on vacation… You likely view it as a form of relaxation and stress relief. And no more. If you are in real pain, you’ll go to a chiropractor, physical therapist, or straight to the hospital. And for most massage therapists working at a hotel spa, you are not wrong to think of massage in this limited way. The training requirements for massage therapists vary greatly from state to state. Not to mention country to country.

For example, here are the training requirements for 4 popular vacation states, and the New York requirements:

• Florida – 500 hours and NCETMB or MBLEx
• California – 500 hours and MBLEx or NCBTMB
• Virginia – 500 hours and MBLEx
• Texas – 500 hours and MBLEx or NCETMB
• New York – 1000 hours and state exam

MBLEx is the “massage and bodywork licensing exam” and is used by many states in the US. NCETMB is the “National Certification Exam for Therapeutic Massage & Bodywork” test. Both are multiple-choice question tests of a massage therapist’s knowledge. This includes anatomy, technique, and professional ethics.

For More Information: Massage Therapy New York

The Benefits of Realignment: Massage Therapy for Feet and Ankles

Your feet are your foundation for upright posture: Invest in massage therapy for your feet and ankles!

Very often someone will ask me: if I could only have one area of my own body worked on, which one would I choose? And more or less always, I respond that I would choose massage therapy for feet and ankles.

Surprised? So are most of the people who ask! But I can’t think of any part of my body that has worked harder than my feet and ankles. Stints in pointe shoes and training for marathons immediately come to mind as the biggest demands I’ve placed on them. But still, they support me as I walk at least 10,000 steps every day up and down the New York City streets.

But even if I’d never danced or run competitively, or walked as much as I do, my feet and ankles are still the foundation for the entire weight of my body. They absorb information from the ground so that the nervous system can create standing posture all the way up the skull. And if something is less optimal with your feet and ankles, your posture will change to compensate. Just imagine what would happen if there were a problem or weakness in the foundation of a building. Similarly, issues in the feet and ankles can lead to a cascade of dysfunctions throughout the body. Massage therapy for feet and ankles can create profound improvements in our posture and movement.

More Information: Massage Therapy New York

Neck Pain Relief: How we assess the root causes and get you the best results

Neck pain is a super common concern. Physicians estimate that 7 out of 10 of us will suffer from it at some point during our lifetimes. As a licensed massage therapist, neck pain relief is the number one request clients make to me during intake. It’s often coupled with its close relative, shoulder pain — more on that below. Pain medications can help lessen the severity of the symptoms. However, they generally won’t be able to target the root of the problem. 

A licensed massage therapist experienced in assessing the causes of neck dysfunction can help you get to the bottom of your pain. In order to address it most effectively during your visit. They can also help you understand some of the reasons why your neck pain started in the first place. And suggest simple lifestyle changes you might need to make in order to prevent it from coming back as a chronic issue. 

Intake 101: Helpful basic information for neck pain relief

Like a detective trying to solve a crime, a medical massage therapist will want to know certain details about your symptoms. The more clear and precise you can be, the easier you can make it for your therapist to help. Some of you already know exactly what caused or causes the pain. To others, it’s a mystery. To help unmask the root culprits, we’ll ask a series of questions usually from totally open-ended to narrowing down specifics.  

Basic Questions with New Clients

For instance, we might start with open ended questions such as: 

How would you describe the pain?

Neck pain can range from dull ache that doesn’t let up to a sharp, stabbing sensation that comes on only during certain positions or movements.

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