Sports Massage Zone - Peta McSharry
When the TransAm Bike Race popped up on my radar, I thought: That's my kind of race. A solo, unsupported race across 4,200miles of the USA, taking in around 50,000m of climbing. In what would turn out to be a years project of researching kit, testing it and putting in a few training blocks using the kit, I felt ready to tackle this huge challenge of an adventure.
Over the ten years of treating soft tissue injuries, using hands on techniques gives a good feel for what feels right and what doesn't. As the years go on you build up a large database of knowledge in your hands and find the techniques which offer the best response.
One would expect someone in this type of job would know better, however sometimes small changes can cause big problems, especially when the distances ramp up. In a quest (it's been ongoing for 15 years) to get perfect on the bike, I am a micro-adjuster or as I say, tweaker. Knowing I'd be spending in excess of 200km per day on the bike for over 3 weeks, I started making some tweaks to get more comfortable on the bike over distance. Problem was I wasn't sure which direction to go in.
It is hard to believe 10 years has passed since queueing outside the exam room, nervously waiting to complete our final step to becoming sports and remedial massage therapists. At the time there was a story of a leading therapist and brilliant tutor who, after 10 years, just sold up and went off to lay floor tiles. Actually we subsequently found out it was landscape gardening, but still, what a massive change in careers, especially as we had just spent a year training to do our dream jobs.
