So *that's* sports massage, hmmmm? OW!

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Mary, over at A Merry Life, asks what lessons life's taught us today.  And I think that what *I* learned is today that Sports Massages can create some serious OUCH if you let them.

See, I figured that now that I was running regularly (for "regularly", read: sessions of approximately an hour, three times a week), organising a regular sports massage every now and then might be a smart move from an injury-prevention viewpoint.  I'd already noticed a tendency towards stiffness and soreness in certain muscle groups - despite a pretty thorough stretching routine that I follow religiously after running. It's not at the injury stage yet - for a start, it tends to be stiff and sore at the beginning of a run, then gradually ease up over the first 20 min or so of a session - but I can see it getting there if I ignore it.

So on Tuesday night, I hie'd me off to my physio (I think that's what folks in the States call a physical therapist, although the parallel may not be exact), who's also a qualified sports massage therapist, and asked what he thought would be needful, given the background.  I figured he'd be an ideal person to work with, since he's already worked with me through two separate injuries and he knows my history.  He asked a lot of intelligent questions - got me to contort in various ways to test my current flexibility in the affected muscle groups - and suggested a half-hour massage that started with my adductors and hip flexors, where most of the stiffness and soreness was, then moved around to my quads, IT band, and finally settled on my hamstrings... a kind of "round the world" trip of my thighs, if you will.  That sounded reasonable to me, so I hopped up on the table.

That's when the pain started.

Let me be clear... I'd been warned in advance from other runners that sports massages were NOT like the relaxing, soothing massages many people are familiar with.  Especially the first time you have one, if your muscles are a mass of knots and tension, these things can be bloody uncomfortable. And when I'm not being all paranoid-hypochnondria-girl about any discomfort I'm feeling being a sign of a potential injury, I actually have a pretty high pain tolerance, so that didn't scare me off.  I'd told my physio this during the initial consult, and pretty much given him carte blanche to do what my muscles needed, promising that if it really was too much for me to handle, I'd tell him, but otherwise I'd just aim to breathe through it.

So he took me at my word.  And wow. Ow. I'm pretty sure that session was the closest I've ever come to safewording in a professional setting ;-)  The session never actual *hit* my pain tolerance level, but it skirted very near the edges a few times - and yeah, I always let my physio know when we were getting close, on the basis that it was probably something he needed to be aware of to do his job.

Once it was over, though, my leg muscles were literally humming. Sore, but humming.  Yeah, there may have also been one or two endorphins involved, because my wiring's just crossed that way - such is life. So I figured it was all good - till I got home a couple of hours later and saw all the bruising. The vivid, dark, mottled bruising. All up and down the inside of one leg, and a little on the outside of both. Ow. Wow. I don't think my inner thighs have *ever* gone that colour before.

To be honest, I freaked a bit - wondering if I should have said something sooner to the physio, rather than trying to tough it out on the table - wondering if something had gone horribly, horribly wrong (basically, I instantly turned into paranoid-hypochondria-girl for a bit).  Some discussion on the LJ Runners group I'm part of reassured me that bruising certainly isn't unheard of after a  sports massage - some people found they bruised every time they had one, others just the first time. So that was a bit of a relief.  But I still called my physio just to let him know what had happened and we agreed that while it's nothing to panic about, nonetheless, next time (and yes, there's absolutely going to be a next time) , I'll get him to take it just a wee bit more gently.

Meanwhile, it made running yesterday morning, and walking today more than just a little painful. Ow. Just OWWWW.  Especially anywhere I came to a change in gradient, for some reason - and given that my route covers quite a few hills, that was fairly regularly.  It also slowed down my pace considerably for both sessions - although with both of them, I ended the session feeling way better than I'd started it, so I don't regret going out.

So yeah. I think, if someone was asking me whether or not to get a sports massage, I'd recommend it, but only if:

• ... they knew exactly why they were getting it done (in my case, because I think there's a good chance it'll lower my chance of injuring myself)
• ... they had a massage therapist they could trust and felt 100% comfortable communicating with to say that something was too much or too hard WITHOUT it being a huge deal
• ... they were prepared for it to be uncomfortable (and possibly actually hurt), not just during the massage, but possibly for a couple of days afterwards too

Have you ever had a sports massage done? If so, what was your experience?