SPORTS THERAPY

THE ROAD TO RECOVERY STARTS HERE

We are delighted to announce that we will be offering Sports Therapy and Massage here at GL52 Fitness. Adam will be available every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday offering 45 and 60-minute appointments from. These sessions will be the perfect addition to your training here at the gym.

Why see a Sports Therapist?

If you play sports or exercise regularly, any serious athlete or Physio will tell you that you need to combine your fitness routine with regular Sports Massage.

Regular massages will reduce your risk of injury, improve your recovery time post-workout, enable you to exercise more frequently, and make sure any little tweaks or niggles don’t turn into something bigger and nastier.

Is Sports Massage Right for Me?

The name Sports Massage defines an overall approach to massage therapy, rather than something that’s exclusively for sportsmen and women. Though it has been primarily designed to help improve performance and reduce pain and injury in sport, fitness and exercise, its results-driven approach makes it highly effective for people from all walks of life, particularly for anyone looking to improve flexibility, ease tight or painful muscles or combat postural or musculoskeletal pain – whether from an every day injury or simply (and frequently) from spending long hours at a desk.

Sports Massage techniques can also be used to reduce the impact of previous injuries, and the resulting scar tissue or inelasticity that may be impacting on your body’s ability to heal or move properly.

At GL52, we provide Sports Massage for everyone from runners, triathletes, tennis players, footballers, cricketers and golfers, to gym goers, busy mums and time-poor executives.

What does a Sports Massage do?

Sports Massage helps to combat the effects of injury and negative effects of intense and/or frequent sports or fitness training.

It eases tight or sore muscles and improves joint mobility, helping the body move better and recover from exercise faster. It accelerates healing of soft tissue injuries by encouraging the flow of blood carrying oxygen and nutrients, and by treating the muscle tightness and inelasticity that can hinder blood flow.

It can also improve posture, and help address the musculoskeletal impact of today’s sedentary and deskbound working practices.

Lastly, in addition to its physical effects, Sports Massage Therapy can also reduce stress and anxiety, improve mental and physical relaxation and promote a greater sense of well-being.

What Is Sports Massage Like?

Sports Massage is not the relaxing, tranquil treatment that you’d find at any spa. Instead, it’s a sports therapy designed to improve the quality of movement, boost recovery from injury or exercise and ease pain. It is administered by qualified professionals who have been rigorously trained in the musculoskeletal structure and anatomy of the human body. This means you are getting a tailored approach to your appointment, the theory of ‘it has to be painful’ to treat you is a myth, our therapists will discuss their plan with you and continually communicate to check if the level of pressure is appropriate for you.

At GL52, we use a number of different Sports Massage techniques:

A repetitive technique designed to stretch, loosen, soften and lengthen muscle tissue. Strokes are applied with gentle pressure along the muscle fibre and held for a short period of time to fully stretch the muscle, repeated until the muscle is entirely relaxed.

Myofascial release is designed to free up fascia that may be impeding on blood vessels or nerves and improve circulation and nervous system transition. Results include decrease in muscle tightness, increased range of motion and reduction in pain in the affected area.

Relieves chronic tension of soft tissue, and can improve flexibility, range of motion and posture. As the name suggests, the focus is on the deepest layers of muscle tissue, tendons and the fascia (the protective layer surrounding muscles and joints). Despite what many people believe, Deep Tissue Massage does not need to be painful, although firmer pressure is often needed to encourage tight areas to release.

Usually applied to particularly aggravated areas, often where there is referred pain or tenderness, trigger point therapy can eliminate pain and re-educate the muscles into pain-free habits. A long-term treatment, after a few sessions it can reduce swelling, stiffness and tension to improve circulation, flexibility and coordination. Counter-intuitively, while this technique can be uncomfortable, it can simultaneously feel good and will clearly highlight the source of the discomfort.

This technique is used as an alternative to trigger point pressure. Rather than a single point of pressure on the affected area, firm strokes are applied across the grain of the muscle to provide pain relief to increase blood flow, promote healing and reduce pain. Deep friction massage can also be used to break up scar tissue.

This technique lengthens shortened spasmed muscles, strengthens weakened ligaments and muscle, and increases range of motion. The client will be asked to contract the muscle for a few seconds against an anti-force applied by the therapist, stretching the muscle. This is then repeated a number of times to apply the full effect of the technique to the muscle.

Your massage therapist will generally use several of these techniques at different stages of the massage to provide the best treatment for you. As a result, the selection of these techniques will vary from client to client and massage to massage.

Open times

Monday 06:00 – 20:30
Tuesday 06:00 – 20:30
Wednesday 06:00 – 20:30
Thursday 06:00 – 20:30
Friday 06:00 – 19:30
Saturday 08:00 – 14:00
Sunday 08:00 – 14:00

CONTACT US

GL52 Fitness
Furlong Business Park
Bishops Cleeve
Cheltenham
GL52 8TW

hello@gl52fitness.com
01242 437 341

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