However, relief for our busy team is here, and we are delighted to announce we have finally managed to find a brand new, up-and-coming star of the massage world!

Claire Lydon-Strutt – available Saturdays at London Bridge too!

Deep Tissue and Remedial Sports Massage therapist Claire will be working on Mondays and Fridays in Holborn, Saturdays at London Bridge, and Sundays in Highbury and Islington. Click on Claire‘s picture to view her profile!

City Sports Massage Therapist Claire

JM: Running has been part of my life for as long as I can remember, growing up I lived next to the beach and used to find myself running through the dunes for hours on end. At school I played rugby, and being out on the wing, and then later playing at fullback, I found I had to combine speed, agility and stamina to survive. Once out in the big, bad world, I needed a sport that I could pick up and take with me anywhere, and running perfectly fits that bill!


JG: What led you to enter such a challenging race?

JM: Good question, and one I ask myself before every run!

I subscribe to a podcast Marathon Talk, where they interviewed the famous South African runner Bruce Fordyce. I find Bruce really inspiring, he has won the 56 mile race 9 times, with 8 of them being consecutive wins! I was planning to run a race for the charity ARC, and my wife Lis and I thought that Comrades was a big enough challenge, and one that people would engage with and support.


JG: You have a full-time job – How have you managed to fit training and nutrition into your life?

JM: Taking the training first, running should be a part of your everyday routine and needs to be scheduled in where possible. Longer runs are on Saturday and Sunday, this involves early starts and a lot of bartering / chore trading with the missus! However, when you run along the canal on a sunny morning and watch the world wake up it is a wonderful feeling, even after 20 miles! On nutrition for longer runs over 13 miles your body will tell you when it needs fuel, and it is best to eat often and sparingly. I take a sports drink make up from powder `High 5’, `9bar’ snacks and bananas. Everyone is different so the best advice is to just to find what you like and stick with it.


JG: You’ve been a long-term client of City Sports Massage in London, and I know you’ve approached training methodically, carefully even. Do you think that has been part of your success so far?

JM: Definitely, long distance training needs to be carefully planned with routes, mileage and times all prepared and monitored. There are plenty of plans out there for half, marathon and ultra-distances; find one and stick to it. Don’t be tempted to exceed, or beat the plan, it’s far better to build gradually and progressively. For Comrades I have used a remote coach Ian Corless of www.runwildrunfree.co.uk.


JG: What would be your ‘Top five tips’ for would-be, long-distance runners?

JM:
1. Find, stick to and monitor progress against your plan.
2. Try and buddy up with someone to run with every so often, it helps improve pace and the time flies by.
3. Factor in time for rest and recuperation, its ok to have an off day.
4. Incorporate regular massage sessions into your training, a massage therapist can really help flush the muscles out, making them feel lighter and faster. It also heals and prevents injury and helps prepare you for the next challenge.
5. Celebrate the success of finishing, and live to fight another day!


JG: Thank you for your time Jon, we know our readers will be happy to be privy to your experience and advice. We look forward to catching up with you when you get back from South Africa, and you can tell us what it’s like to experience 56 miles of the Comrades ultra-marathon! Good luck from all of us at City Sports Massage!

Jon McGowan is running for the charity ARC. Find out more about his story here.

I recently spent a weekend on an intensive 2 day workshop entitled ‘Group Dynamics’, led by Tamara Alferoff at the Centre for Counselling and Psychotherapy Education. It forms part of a 1 year Foundation in Counselling and Psychotherapy, taking place in a large, peaceful, Victorian building overlooking Little Venice in London.

During the weekend, in which cynical financial traders, airy-yummy mummies, and muscular tree surgeons all rubbed shoulders, there were tears, dramas and a bonding that was natural, deep, and very unforced in this disparate group.

What roles do we play in a group, and why?

We began by examining the typical roles that make up a group. What roles could we identify in our group? ‘The Prankster?’, ‘The Sceptic?’, or ‘The Mother’ perhaps? We looked at what roles we each felt that we filled in a group setting. We examined what motivates this behaviour when we are part of a group, and we looked at our own personal history to see how that role might have developed.

How do we view our group?

Our focus was then drawn to how we viewed our group as an entity. Furnished with coloured pens, glitter and paper, we were asked to draw a picture of ‘the group’ as we perceived it. We then formed small teams, and shared the results of our creative endeavours with each other.

What we didn’t know was, this was a clever trick played by our teacher, Tamara. When we arrived the next morning we had to explain the picture in the first person. In short, we were being asked to describe the picture as representing ourselves, rather than the group. This led to stumbling responses, and one point-blank refusal. But what we learnt (apart from that we had walked into a cunning trap), was that we had all, quite accurately, summed up a deep part of ourselves, and then projected this image onto how we viewed the group.

This revealing bombshell introduced us to the idea of how powerfully we can ‘project’ our feelings, thoughts, fears and hopes onto others, without even being conscious of it.

Our ‘Family Tableaux’.

The next stage of our journey involved hand picking colleagues from our large group to play the roles of our family members. The family member could be dead or alive, young or old. They were asked to stand on an impromptu ‘stage’, and placed in a position that represented the position they hold in our mind’s eye. So if a Father was domineering, he might have been placed standing on a chair, looming over the proceedings. If a Mother was distant, she might have been asked to stare out of the window. This tableaux was added to until all of the relevant family was present.

All of the ‘actors’ were then asked to vocalise how they felt in these positions, purely from their perspective.

I remember watching ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’, and Gregory Peck, playing the part of ‘Atticus Finch’, tells his young son “If you just learn a single trick, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view, until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”

This basic truism is demonstrated in this exercise. As members of our group set up their Family Tableaux, they heard the points of view that each of their family members might have had. In addition, their own feelings were validated, as they heard the actor playing them on stage, expressing emotions, unprompted, that they themselves had often felt when in that position.

The combination of insight into their family members perspective, as well as validation of their own experience and emotion, led to some profoundly deep, personal realisations.

Now to the nitty gritty – how can all this help us?

It sounds like a cliche to say that people reminding us of our family members can provoke such intense behaviour and responses, but it does.

This wasn’t a scientific study, rather an experiential one. As individuals in a group we found that we were both attracted, and repelled by characteristics that reminded us of the behaviour of family members that had played important parts of our early lives.

It appears that our behaviour, as well as being heavily influenced by our genes and socialisation, is also inherently driven by our family backgrounds.

For myself, I was drawn to pick ‘family members’ from my group that were two people in the group who had antagonised me on earlier workshops. It was only then I realised why I had become so easily affected by these folk. They had stirred emotion in me that went back many years. And despite my supposed ‘emotional intelligence and awareness’, I hadn’t even seen it.

What that allowed me to do was to put the antagonism, and therefore the relationship, in perspective. Rather than personalising it, I was able to create a buffer zone, which de-intensified the emotions, and allowed me to see that perhaps I also reminded my colleagues of someone they had had difficulties with in their past, and they too were clouded by unexpectedly irascible feelings.

Perhaps though, I was just downright irritating to them. I guess I’ll never know!

Using the lessons of our past.

It’s easy to say that simple ‘personal chemistry’ is responsible for not getting along with others, and of course there’s much truth in that. But it’s certainly not the whole truth, and without acknowledging the full picture we can never understand, develop and maximise our opportunities and potential.

Yes, we should live in the present moment, but by neglecting to put our personal landscapes into a historical perspective, we miss the chance of learning from the patterns of our past, and therefore compromise our chance of a peaceful future.

©Jon Gee 2011

Jon Gee is the founder of City Sports Massage, a team of massage therapists in London who combine deep-tissue massage therapy with stress-reduction and body-awareness techniques.

Discovering the space in one minute.

Find somewhere you wont be disturbed for 60 seconds or so. Close the door. Turn your devices to silent. Set a timer for 60 seconds. A vibrate alert on a phone is ideal.

Now get in a comfortable, seated position. You can do this anywhere. Even the toilet!

Close your eyes, and breath slowly in through your nostrils, and slowly out through your nostrils. Slowly.

Slower.

That’s one breath.

Continue in this slow, measured manner, really noticing the breath, and counting each one.

Continue until the alert on your timer goes off.

What did you discover?

At the end of the minute – how many breaths did you count?

What happened to time? Did it feel like a long time? Did it pass quickly? What did you notice?

Were you paying attention to the breath? Or was your mind naturally wondering?

Consider all these questions, and ask yourself how you are feeling – paying special attention to any differences in breathing rates. Note any sensations in your muscles.

Taking it further.

This is going to sound crazy, but in order to get the most out of the time you set aside for this activity, you will need to forget about trying to achieve a goal.

Simply observe your breathing. Try not to be judgmental. Be curious.

Explore.

Imagine you don’t know exactly where you’re going, and you’ve got plenty of time get there.

Why not set the timer, and try it again?

FAQs.

Q. I tried it, and I just kept thinking about what I was having for dinner, about a current project, or about my kids. What went wrong?

A. Nothing. That’s normal. Don’t get annoyed with your thoughts, that’s all they are – thoughts. The trick is to notice them, and just gently push them to one side. Thoughts, like sheep, aren’t always the brightest things, they go running about, bumping into each other and getting confused. So like sheep, gently herd them away, so you can get along with just counting the breath…one…two…

Q. Wow. That was cool! It went really slowly and felt like ages. I breathed slowly, and I feel calmer. What’s next?

A. Great! That’s the first stage of reclaiming your body. Every time we breath into to our lungs we stretch our ribs. This in turn creates movement that eases pain and promotes a healthy, functioning torso. Our shoulders are perched on top of our ribs, so guess what? Yep, it can even stretch our shoulders too. We have also began to develop our proprioception. But more about that soon – in the meantime; enjoy a minute out during your day.

Q. Is this meditation, or mindfulness as it’s often known?

A. Yes! It’s practices like this that are well established in more than 250 hospitals in the USA, teaching natural, pain and stress relief techniques.

Conclusion.

By giving yourself this space – just a minute – you can reconnect with the breath. One minute is not generally considered a long time, yet it can make all the difference to a stressed-out day. And this is the foundation of pain-free living.

Try it!

Pro Tips.

Watch your breath entering and leaving your body. If it helps, imagine you are breathing in white, positive, energising light, and breathing out black, negative smoke. Or make up your own colours – be creative, and enjoy focusing on just the breath.

Notice how it feels. Do your muscles feel soft, or hard? Try to release the muscles on the ‘out’ breath.

Enjoy any feelings of calm. You created them!

© Jon Gee 2011

To read more about the way we combine deep-tissue massage with mindfulness – Stay tuned!

Jon Gee is the founder of City Sports Massage, a team of massage therapists in London who combine deep-tissue massage therapy with stress-reduction and body-awareness techniques.

What sort of massage am I looking for?
In the UK there are two terms – deep tissue and sports massage. A sports massage qualification requires more hours of study and practice than a deep tissue qualification, and the BTEC diploma is currently the highest level of sports massage certification in the UK.

So you really dont need to have a ‘sports injury’? In fact the majority of our clients work in an office and many suffer from stress, tension, anxiety, and all the things that are normal in a modern-day, city-based lifestyle.

At City Sports Massage we have developed a way of working that includes ALL of the factors in your lifestyle. This is largely centred on our ability to encourage COMMUNICATION. There is no reason you can’t find that elsewhere, but you might need to look hard! This article is designed to help you in that search.

Where do I start?
Your first port of call should be your social network-friends, colleagues, loved ones. Have they had a successful treatment locally? If not, then try asking at ballet academies, football and rugby clubs.

There are various sports massage and complementary health associations, and although membership will guarantee a certain minimum level of good quality training, what you are really looking for in a therapist is not just training, but also equal measures of dexterity, communication, empathy, confidence and willingness to listen. Unfortunately there is no existing ‘directory’ that guarantees all these qualities.

Online searches
Search online – ‘sports massage (your area)’, ‘deep tissue massage (your area)’. In the UK you could look at Level 4 or 5 BTEC qualified massage therapists on www.thesma.org and try cross referencing their name to see if you can find any reviews or testimonials online. Check out running and cycling forums where people are often sharing recommendations.

So you’ve found a potential therapist?
So you’ve found a potential therapist. Do they have any customer testimonials or references? A successful therapist should have no end of willing clients pleased to put in a good word. But maybe they’ve just qualified? Don’t be put off by that, they might be naturally fantastic and as-yet-undiscovered. Many newly qualified therapists are happy to offer introductory discounts as they build up their confidence and client base. Why not book in for a short introductory session to see if it feels ‘right’? But do bear in mind that, depending on your temperament, it might take you a little time to relax into the session, so don’t expect any ‘miracles’ from a short session.

Communication is the key
A successful treatment is dependent on your relationship with your therapist. You should try to be direct and straightforward with your requests. A good therapist will be sensitive, but none are ‘mind readers’ – so be prepared to clearly communicate your desired outcome.

Try to go into the session with an open, relaxed state of mind. Remember that the vast majority of working therapists are kind, caring sensitive people who genuinely want to help you. The more relaxed you are the more a therapist can ‘work their magic’ – because your tissues are softer and more pliable.

So to summarise;

Do your research – ask friends, colleagues, family, local sports clubs or dance companies.

Search online – ‘sports massage (your area)’, ‘deep tissue massage (your area)’.

Ask for testimonials/references if you find someone you think might be suitable.

Communicate your wishes – both before the treatment and during. Remember a treatment is a relationship, and trust and communication is the lifeblood of any relationship.

© Jon Gee 2011

Jon Gee is the founder of City Sports Massage, a team of massage therapists in London who combine deep-tissue massage therapy with stress-reduction and body-awareness techniques.

How can massage help?
By facilitating release of the chest using breathing and gentle yet powerful movements, shoulders can be worked on, tight tissues made to melt away, and very easy-to-follow exercises given to strengthen posture.

2. It’s difficult to move my neck.
Can’t turn your head around? Feel like you’ve ‘wrenched’ your neck? Often a gradual tightening of the muscles precedes a muscle tear; which in turn leads to a ‘spasm’ – where the muscles ‘lock’, and seem reluctant to let go.

How can massage help?
By focusing on releasing the muscles slowly the spasm can be eased, and muscles restored to a healthier range of motion. With a competent therapist, you should feel it happening quite quickly!

3. After I run/exercise I get a pain in my muscles.
Hamstrings feel tight or restrictive? Glutes (buttocks) painful? A knee feels like it’s being pulled off-centre? Often when we train hard the body responds the only way it knows – by yelping in pain! Good, hard training inevitably leads to an accumulation of natural toxic waste – the by-products of muscle activity. Whilst warm-downs, hot showers and stretching after activity can help shift these troublesome particles, sometimes the build up becomes too much, and intervention is needed.

How can massage help?
Massage ‘flushes’ out the muscles, and overworked, torn and knotted muscles can be ‘persuaded’ to go back to their original, healthy, functioning pain – free state!

4. I feel very stiff in the mornings, but it gets better throughout the day.
This is possibly because your body has been moving very little for several hours. Our bodies are made for MOVEMENT, and will ‘grumble’ at us if we hold them in static positions for too long.

How can massage help?
When investigating the source of the discomfort, we often find it is within tissues that are already tight from our daily routines. The long periods of static sleep are usually ‘the straw that broke the camel’s back’. A good massage therapist can help review your daily routines, and look at the possible causes. This is in addition to manual deep-tissue, or sports massage, which will unlock tight tissues, and should provide a rapid and measurable amount of pain relief.

5. I can’t sleep at night, and it’s getting worse.
Thoughts rushing through your head? About today? About tomorrow? Chances are you’re breathing is shallow, and you’re exhibiting all the signs of the ‘fight or flight’ stress response.

How can massage help?
Breathing is the key in this scenario, along with exercises in mindfulness. A well trained, advanced massage therapist should be able to help you in this regard. It’s quite a specialist subject, so make sure you ask your therapist if they have experience in this area (all of the City Sports Massage team do). The idea is, by teaching our muscles when they are ‘on’ and when they are ‘off’, even the most stressed-out of us can learn to take back control of our sleep patterns. This is ironically achieved by initially relinquishing control of our muscles, and allowing ourselves to gain a knowledge of what soft, relaxed, loose muscles actually feel like.

COMING NEXT…

“I’d love to come and visit City Sports Massage, but I don’t live in London – so how do I choose the right massage therapist in my locality?”

**Please note that you should consult your GP if you are in any doubt of your health condition**

Article © Jon Gee 2011

Jon Gee is the founder of City Sports Massage, a team of massage therapists in London who combine deep-tissue massage therapy with stress-reduction and body-awareness techniques.

After more than 3 happy years at Natureworks we have decided to move just a few streets away to The Berkeley Clinic. It is a serene and peaceful clinic, located just 3 minutes walk from Marble arch tube, and very close to Oxford Street. Unusually for Central London there are even parking spaces outside! From 15th November I will be doing Mondays & Thursdays from 1pm-8pm, and Chris will be doing all-day sessions on Tuesdays, Wednesdays & Fridays 9am – 8pm. Come and check us out. It’s so posh!

You can of course still visit us at Natureworks until then!

You’re suffering from aching, painful shoulders, neck stiffness, and you might even be getting headaches too. It gets worse when you sleep, but mysteriously better when you have a drink or two? Sound familiar?

This is one of the most common, aggravating – yet easy-to-treat set of conditions found in the modern day work environment.

Surprisingly enough we weren’t designed to sit in the same position for 8 hours a day. But before you go and tell your boss what you think of him/her, and jump on a jet plane for a ‘long break’, there’s some incredibly basic and easy-to-follow principles you can learn, which could drastically improve your lot!

At the bottom of this quandry is usually one word – MOVEMENT. The simple reason most of us suffer these aches and pains is LACK OF MOVEMENT. In short, your body is designed for movement. When it doesn’t move for long periods of time it becomes unhappy, starts complaining, and that’s when you feel ‘pain’.

But what’s happening?

Our muscles are coated in a strong, thin film of connective tissue called ‘fascia’. If you’ve ever prepared chicken, you might remember taking the skin off the bird and seeing the membrane covering all the muscles? That’s fascia. As well as covering the whole muscle, it covers all the individual muscle fibres too. In fact, our ‘muscle’ is nothing more than a type of protein paste, with fascia forming surrounding the paste, much like a sausage, to form individual, microscopic muscle fibres. These in turn are coated with more fascia – which binds all the ‘sausages’ together to form what you see as a big ‘muscle’.

Following so far? Now as you can imagine, every time our muscles move, the fascia gets worn down. In order to maintain our structure, it needs to grow – constantly. Which is all well and good in a healthy, moving body – it grows, it gets worn down etc, etc. But in a body that isn’t moving. Well, that’s where the drama really starts.

Ouch!

You’re sitting at your desk, slumped over the computer in the same position you’ve been in all day. The muscles aren’t moving, yet the fascia continues to grow. As we now know, the fascia isn’t being ‘worn down’ by the movement, so, continuing to grow, it starts further restricting movement in already stiff areas. It’s not getting lubricated so it becomes dry and forms a hard, compact substance. Furthermore, muscle waste such as lactic acid gets trapped too. You now have a big, nasty traffic jam going on. And we all know how painful they can be!

So clever clogs, what’s the answer?

Well if you remember, the cause of the pain was LACK OF MOVEMENT. So it stands to reason that the solution here is MOVEMENT. You need to move those muscles, regularly. Get up, go and get a drink of water. Slowly shrug your shoulders – both forwards, and backwards. Slowly rotate your neck by looking to the left, then the right. Then slowly look up, and slowly look down. Everything should be done slowly, taking care to really feel what you are doing. Try shutting your eyes when you do it – this will heighten your senses surrounding your body awareness.

And once you’ve gone through these basic movements, get creative. You don’t have to launch into a contemporary dance routine in the middle of the office, but you can explore where your restrictions are, and see how they feel when you slowly stretch them.

It might all feel a little clunky at first. You’ll probably wonder if you’re doing it right. But keep trying, it’s a learning process.

Remember that getting to know your body is a journey, so don’t expect it to all come at once.

Is that it?

Well yes and no. Sometimes it’s as simple as learning how to move the body – and the techniques described above will suffice. But sometimes your body will be so ‘set’ in a cycle of dysfunction that it will have created further imbalances and weaknesses. These can be treated by a good sports and remedial therapist who can recommend easy stretches and relaxing exercises that will help you to restore function. Occasionally you may need to be referred to another specialist, which a good sports and remedial massage therapist will be able to recommend.

And remember – if you’re suffering from regular headaches you should always go and get checked out by your doctor!

Do your friends and loved ones a favour – Please forward this on to anyone you think who might be helped by the info within!

I appreciate Jon’s honesty and if I need work on something, such as a particular area, he will tell me, and equally if I don’t, he will also tell me.”

Stephanie Weekes
Project Manager

“I had a sports massage appointment with you last Thursday in order to help prepare me for my jujitsu grading. I would just like to say that I passed the grading, and to say thank you. My body felt incredibly relaxed and I was able to breath in the same natural manner that you advised during my appointment. It made a world of difference.”

Sean Adjei
Jujitsu practitioner

And on a more general treatment;

“You gave me the best massage I’ve ever had in 2006. sadly I left for nyc that year – I’ve had hundreds of massages since but they haven’t come close. Thanks!”

Binifer Kaikobad
Anti-money Laundering Specialist. International Banking

Thanks for your feedback folks – it’s really appreciated!

At it’s most fundamental, massage therapy (and for that matter most bodywork) is about *manipulation* of the muscoskeletal system.

So far, so simple.

But historically, business people have tried to name, and define their brand. By naming their product, they are able to to market it – to sell it, and in the case of massage therapy, to teach it.

So every massage therapy has a different name, and, when you consider that every massage therapist has had a different a different training, and has different personal skill sets, it’s easy to see why you can find yourself both confused and disappointed when you go for a treatment.

It is worth noting that an experienced, developed, able therapist will allow these imaginary divisions to blur – as each person who requests a treatment has their own unique requirements. We at City Sports Massage constantly challenge our therapists during their in-house training, with perceptions of what constitutes ‘sports massage’.

To give you an idea of ‘definitions’, you can read an outline of our massage treatments here.

But please remember; what is essential to you receiving a good treatment, is that your therapist is *listening* to you, and has the skills and experience to communicate with your body.

It’s not really about the definition of the treatment, it’s about the definition of the relationship.