Sports Massage - runners knee

Dealing with knee pain when running is a common injury. Finding the route cause can take time. While it’s easy to give the injury a name: Chondromalacia Patella, Fat Pad Impingement, ITB pain (Illiotibia Band Friction Syndrome), Patella Tendonitis, Bursitis. Finding the root cause of a medical diagnosis can be more difficult because so many things can impact why an area is being aggravated. Over the last 15 years of successfully treating and resolving many runner’s knee issues, I’ve found certain movement patterns relating to knee pain in running. As part of my treatment for runners, I will look for those deviating movements and offer remedial exercises to help or suggest options to get you strengthened up to support your body for running. I view resolving these knee issues as a two pronged approach to resolving the problem: I will free up the areas restricting free movement or areas that are restricting your muscles from firing off correctly, while I’ll highlight areas that need to be engaged, strengthened or switched on - this is work you’d need to do and again I’ll suggest which may suit you best - pilates, a carefully structured weight training plan, some yoga. I understand the demands of modern day life and the time constraints we have as athletes, so the work I give you to do will be easy to follow and will not take up a huge amount of your daily routine. 

Myofascial Release for pain relief

As an endurance cyclist (we’re talking about riding 600km in a weekend, non-stop). I know how much pain can affect work and getting back to work on a Monday and  how a stiff neck affects how I move. If I had to sit at a desk in a fixed position, I’d be in more pain than if I was moving. Much of the neck pain I see in clinic comes from sitting at a computer screen. The sports massage and Myofascial Release we do in clinic seeks out these stuck parts of the muscle and fascia, finding them can seem like a needle in a haystack, but a sport massage or Myofascial therapist with years of knowledge can hone in very quickly. As a client you know the exact spot when the therapist moves over a problem area. I get a huge amount of massage treatment and will try out a few different places to compare how we are doing relative to out clients. I’m always left frustrated when the epicentre of my problems is just brushed over by the therapist. I’ve even given big clues like “oh yes that’s the spot” but they drift off to another part they’d prefer to treat. So when you come to see me, I’m determined to find the epicentre of that spot that is causing the problem. It may not always be the spot where your pain shows up, but when I hit the centre of the problem, I get a verbal affirmation from most of my clients and invariable it feels connected to the spot that is causing pain. Recently one of my clients mentioned they were getting tingling in their fingers and toes. To say their back was like an ironing board would be an understatement. When I got onto the spot along their spine that was really bound up, the tingling increased and once I’d freed it up and it soften, the tingling went. Again this reaffirms my belief that freeing up problems on a more permanent basis is more about hitting the right spots rather than applying as much force as possible over a large area. 

Comrades Marathon - sports massage

We’re happy to report all our Comrades Marathon runners made it through, it was an up run this year, a slightly kinder direction on the knees, so none of our returning runners suffered any knee pain or that dreaded runners knee cased by ITB pain. The Comrades is 86km, going through the Valley of a 1000 hills from Durban to Pietermaritzburg in South Africa. Running down hill is much harder in the Quads (front thigh muscles) and this can affect the knees. We do Marathon MOTs to help clients building distance. This entails testing some key muscle function needed to control the knees during running. A look at your posture and structure (basically how your body twists and turns caused by tightness in the fascia) we can assess where to release tight areas and give effective stretches to target specific areas). Many clients are stretching, but the stretch may be missing a part of the deeper muscle/fascia structure. A slight tweak in how you position your body in the stretch may target the area that’s causing tightness. We’re aiming to not just massage the area causing pain, but to find underlying, often hidden, problem areas and give a targeted approach to resolve the problem. The runners completing the Comrades Marathon were a mixture of long term clients - some who originally came to see us for Achilles tendon problems, which we resolved via structural analysis, Myofascial Release and general sports massage, then armed them with targeted muscle activation and stretching - to new clients presenting with some niggles in the few weeks before the race. Training for a double marathon can be hard on the body and we’re there to use all the tools at our disposal to help.

Are you training for an ultramarathon or the Etape, Paris-Brest-Paris or any other ultra event? We’re out there suffering with you, so know how to help. Drop in to our Liverpool Street Sports Massage clinic, Peta is an ultra-distance cyclist and retired ultra-runner, she can pass on many of tips from her experiences or just help settle those pre-race nerves.

Tammy plays netball, weight trains and has worked with pro footballers, she’ll get you back up and running. 

Unsure whether you need a Sports Massage or Myofascial Release treatment, please let us know when you text to book in, let us know your ailment and we can suggest the best route for you.

In order of numbers over the month, here are our top hot spots for sports massage near me:

Sports Massage Moorgate

We are close Moorgate Tube station, between Moorgate Road and Old Broad Street. Finsbury Circus is just across the road from our clinic, close to Close Brothers on Throgmorton Avenue and Deutsche Bank on London Wall. The door to our building is on London Wall. 

Sports Massage Liverpool Street

It is a 3 minute walk from Liverpool Street station to our sports massage clinic on London Wall, near the Blomfield Road junction, look for the Cafe Nero across from KO Box, we’re next to Cafe Nero.

Sports Massage Bank

Bank Tube station is an easy 5-8 minute walk to our Sports Massage Liverpool Street clinic, depending on where you are in Bank, Usually the quickest way is to walk from Bank to Sports Massage Zone Moorgate than to jump on the tube.

Sports Massage near me

Looking for a sports massage near me? Sometimes travelling a little further to a clinic that has good reviews on Google is worth the travel time. We’ve had clients from all over coming to us because our clients have been kind enough to detail our work in their Google reviews. 

Sports Massage Old Street

It’s a little further to get to us for a myofascial release from Old Street, there are railings you can lock your bike to if you cycle over.

Sports Massage Spitalfields

It’s not far from Spitalfields, to get a remedial massage with us, head past Liverpool street station and you’ll find us on London Wall.

Sports Massage St Pauls

It’s an 8-10 walk to come in for Myofascial Release or sports massage near me if you’re coming from St Paul’s and Cheapside, it’s an 8-10 walk to come in for Myofascial Release or sports massage near me.

And some of the more distant places, we have visitors from Paris, Romford, Kensington,London Bridge, Wandsworth and a few cyclists from Putney and Richmond.

If you suffer acute pain or a long term injury we don’t mind where you come from, we’d be delighted to get you back on the road to recovery.