Working with Me at Essential Body Therapy

What I do...I specialize in pain management

With an accumulation of pain, it will require an accumulation of self care work. This can include massage, Chiropractic, Acupuncture, Physical Therapy, Yoga etc. My goal with each client is to help you recover and maintain sustainability in your activities, especially for sport such as CrossFit, HIIT, Circuit Training, Jui Jitsu, Martial Arts, a high activity career such as fire fighting or being a massage therapist, etc etc etc.

Because I specialize in pain management, I have created a process and flow that I follow with each client. Ill give you an overall process and then go into detail as to what I do in each step.

Steps From Pain Management to Pain Maintenance

Ideally weekly or every other week

Session 1

Discovery Part 1 - Introductions and what’s at the surface discovery

First session is always a discovery session and a what I call…"The first Date"...my energy is getting to know your energy & visa versa. Ill be honest, the first session is always the worst session, it's sort of like when you do a workout after not working out for a long time and then you are sore for a week, sometimes more. Its the worst! Also, if it's your first deep tissue sport massage or you haven't had one in a while, there be an accumulation of pain more than you know. I'm breaking through adhesions & scar tissue from old stuff that has accumulated over that time. I always say the first session is the worst, but will get better once we break through all of that pain.

Session 2

Discovery Part 2 - Check in from last session.

How did your body react to our last session? Any improvements?

We talk about what those are and other sensations that may have come out. Now, we are getting closer to a root problem. I don’t like to treat the surface problems…I like treating root problems. So this may include us discussing ways to improve posture, changing shoes, paying attention to movement shifts during workouts. For example, for cross fitters, paying attention to your squat. Can you get your "ass to the grass" or are you only going half way above the knees. That will tell us to focus on hip mobility, knee mobility, and ankle mobility.

Session 3

Diving Deeper - Getting closer to the Root Problem Discuss movements, posture, emotions, even food habits. With the new found body awareness, we may be able to dive deeper and get closer to a root problem.

In my experience if there are no improvements after the second session we could be getting into structure or poor movement habits. So we will need to dig deeper into this.

I will usually suggest to add in other therapies such as Chiropractic…sometimes pain is from structural imbalances and that is not in my scope of practice. Or I may suggest to see your doctor to rule out tears etc.…having a tear in your muscle is important for me to know because my type of work can exacerbate and impede your recovery. I will want to avoid the area that has been torn and work the areas around the tear due to your other muscle over compensation.

Session 4

Comparison - How does the body feel compared to the first session

Plan the next treatment plan if needed.

At this point, we will compare your pain or restriction level to the very first session. Most of the time, my clients will say they can run again, they can CrossFit again but the pain is only slightly there. Etc etc. We will discuss putting more time in between sessions to see/feel how your body reacts.

If the pain still persist, I will highly suggest gentle yoga, seeing a doctor or chiropractor depending on what the issue is within your body. Also, I would suggest another 4 sessions of massage. And the process starts over but we measure from the new plan. I may need to find a different root problem or move on to a different muscle group. Everything is connected. So treatments will be different with every pain in the body that may arise.

How to get to a maintenance massage level?

Your level of pain will be measured from the 1st session to our current session. We measure if you are able to do your sport activity with or with less pain...better yet without pain. We measure with how much is communicated in every single session. This is why I prefer weekly or every other week to every 3-4 weeks. It gives us a better gauge of whether or not our sessions are benefiting you and your progress.

In my experience, monthly massage can not be measured effectively. In the 10 years I have been a massage therapist I see the same thing happen every time with a monthly sport massage. By the end of the month, an accumulation of more stress is put on the body and added to the accumulation of pain/stress that was already there. I will then have to start completely over every time I see you on a monthly basis. Then of course there are the possibilities of getting an injury during that month. Ive seen results, but not as fast as with weekly or every other week.

Thank you for reading this post. Yes its lengthy but now you know y process!!