Kate’s Write Up of the Paralympics

What a fantastic yet exhausting week at the paralympics! The response for the massage was brilliant everyone kept coming back for more!

Most clients were media people carrying cameras all day long who were looking for relief for their shoulders.  Firstly I would ask them to take 3 deep breaths in to relax.  Then I started on their lower back to make sure they felt a release of tension all over the back, not just at the shoulders. Every person I saw had shoulders up by their ears with tension and the muscles that run parallel to the spine (Paraspinals) were solid too. I would use broad techniques with the palm of my hand to begin with to warm up the muscles, then move onto using my thumbs (butterfly technique) to increase the pressure to release tension. I then moved onto specific stretch technique, in which I apply pressure down into the muscle as the client stretches out the muscle that has been pinned by me. This is a fantastic technique that has instant results, however it is sometimes quite tender. I used this technique on the paraspinals, upper trapezius, and neck muscles with which you can see visible increases in range of movement of the cervical spine (neck) straight after the technique has been used.

The therapists I got to work with at the paralympics were fantastic, it was lovely to meet new faces and learn from other people. All in all it was a great experience and I even got to meet some famous faces!!