The recent winner of ‘Young Travel Journalist of the Year 2009′, Alex Dalzell, whilst on assignment for the uber-swanky, glossy magazine Spa Secrets, visited the Islington branch of City Sports Massage.

Alex wanted to see if he could get some help with his troublesome back pain – read on to find out what he discovered…

GET BACK – Alex Dalzell gets to the bottom of backache

The Problem

I used to shrug off the advice to always lift heavy objects with the legs as health and safety gone mad, another government guideline to avoid the small claims court. Until, that is, the day I bent down to lift up a crate of beer, all back and no knees, and a muscle in my lower back tore, sending me to the ground in screaming agony.

Ever since that day, my back hasn’t been the same, regularly throwing out spikes of pain and on a couple of occasions rendering me unable to do anything but lie flat for hours at a time. It seems I’m not alone, with four in five adults experiencing back pain at some point during their lives. More often than not, it’s difficult for a doctor to diagnose the exact cause of the injury because in many cases the pain starts a day or two after an injury occurs, or the cause has built up gradually over years rather than brought on by a single accident.

Many pains are caused by a strain or tear to the muscles, tendons or ligaments around the lower spine. Slouching in chairs, driving in hunched positions, standing badly, sleeping on a soft mattress and lifting incorrectly all have adverse effects on your back. But is there anything else you can do to help yourself?

The Salon

With the muscles in my back screaming out to be de-stressed I decided to try a professional deep tissue sports massage. After scouring the Internet for a reputable masseur close to where I worked in London, I came across the treatment centre City Sports Massage. Unlike most spas set in the basement of a glitzy luxury hotel, this small inner city treatment centre is based on the top two floors of a health food shop on a main road in Islington. First up, I sat down for a brief chat with my masseur Jon Gee, the senior masseur and owner, to run through my problem areas and allow him to lay down some ground rules: ‘If I’m causing you pain – shout; if I’m not causing you enough pain – shout.’ The next 15 minutes was aimed at making me relax every muscle in my back using deep breathing techniques.

Once my back was supple and workable, Jon started applying pressure on the lower back, either side of the spine and between the shoulder blades, explaining how all the muscles link up in a network and how tension in one area can cause pain in another. Throughout the massage, which was at times teeth-clenchingly painful, Jon explained what he was doing and before long I heard the squelching of the knots being broken down.

This massage threw my previous notions of relaxation out the window – gone were the candles and the scent of jasmine, and the masseur actually talked to me. For anyone who wants a lesson in how to look after your body, this is the one for you. www.citysportsmassage.com

Reprinted with kind permission of Alex Dalzell / Absolute Publishing. All text © Alex Dalzell 2009.