Massage

When I was in massage school, I never felt like I’d ever be a sports massage therapist. It just didn’t feel right to me, probably because I had never been athletic. My instructors would talk about how you had to know massage and specialize in a particular sport to become a good sports massage therapist. It just didn’t interest me.

In my head I would think that if I worked with athletes, I would treat them as any other client who presented with aches and pains. Identify the ache or the pain and work accordingly. It was simple, in my mind.

Of course, recently I have learned how to be a coxswain, taken a Learn to Row class with Rocket City Rowing Club and spent this year’s summer vacation learning to scull at Calm Waters Rowing camp. You might say that I’ve become a novice athlete.

Last weekend I found myself working with a client who sweep rows competitively. She was having lumbar region issues that manifested mostly while she was sitting in the boat and felt kinked up when she wasn’t in the boat. While working I began asking her questions about when and where she felt the pain. Before I realized it I was asking very specific question about during what phase of her rowing stroke she was feeling the pain.

That’s when it hit me. This is what my instructors were talking about when they talked about understanding the sport and its biomechanical peculiarities.

I certainly didn’t set out to become a sports massage therapist when I began this odyssey of learning to row. Mostly I did it to appease friends who were rowing and needed a short person to steer the boat. The learning to sweep row was a necessity at becoming a better coxswain and an attempt to get healthier. In the process though, I found something that I really enjoy doing, I’ve made new friends, gained new clients, dropped some weight, and gotten healthier.

And, unwittingly, I have also become a sports massage therapist who specializes in the sport of rowing. Who knew?