What is Chinese Sports Massage? Aka Chinese Sports Medicine

Much as there has become a practice in allopathic healthcare known as Sports Medicine, there is a branch of TCM that could be considered a kind of “Chinese Sports Medicine”. The practice involves the use of Tui Na soft tissue massage, acupuncture, and the full range of TCM modalities, specifically for the treatment and prevention of sports related injuries. China has an “athletic” tradition that reaches back as far into antiquity as traditional Chinese medicine – the Chinese Pugilistic Martial Arts. Since much of the true martial art master’s martial arts prowess depends on his or her ability to control and focus Qi, it is only logical that TCM would have developed modalities to specifically treat injuries related to the martial arts. In ancient China, many Monks in temples and other Martial Arts Masters were also “doctors,” sought out for their skills in the healing arts especially in areas involving muscle sprains, tears and bone injuries.

Chinese Sports Massage helps to prevent injury prior to participating in sports or exercise by bringing warming up and stretching to a whole new level. Massage after sporting activities or strenuous participation helps return muscles and joints back to a relaxed state and can also treat the pain of minor sports related injuries common to any athlete after a game or match.

In addition to the treatment of sprains and strain, therapeutic massage can be used to relax trigger points. Trigger points are a kind of sports injury. Trigger points are not bruises. They are commonly described as “knots” or points of tension. They are painful when touched, and this pain often radiates to other areas of the body. Sports massage can unwind these knots and relax the trigger points and enhance recovery.

Chinese style sports massages are often very popular with travelers and active people as this form of massage differs from traditional TuiNa in the way the focus of the treatment aims to alleviate pains and strains of muscles and ligaments. For example, travelers often experience extremely tight neck and shoulder conditions (also known as the Zombified Neck) after a long flight and are often plagued by lower back pains concurrently due to prolonged seating in a stasis position on board a flight. These conditions can be relieved through a thorough Chinese sports massage therapy. Due to the fact that Sports Massage is a treatment, you will encounter stronger pull and stretch compared to traditional TuiNa or relaxation massage. The rationale behind it is that your sprained muscles and joints needed to be strongly pulled and stretched in order to recover. Therefore, there is actually a loyal group of clients who love hard massage and will actually prefer Chinese Sports Massage therapy because they find traditional massage too mild.

At RoyalWay TCM, our specialist treatment therapists aka Sifus are skilled in the art of the traditional way of Chinese style sports massage treatment. Our therapist will first find out what are the main issues plaguing our patients via a mini-consultation. After discovering your major pain points and formulating a customised treatment for you, our therapists will focus on the treatment to facilitate your recovery and unbuckling your strains and pains. After the session, you should be able to regain close to your maximum muscles mobility and increased joint movement before your injury. Our therapists will usually ask you to stretch yourself so that you can discover the difference in you before and after the therapy. You should also be able to benefit from significant pain relief due to the unknotting of spasmic muscles and misaligned tendons and ligaments. 

The treatment will end with a hot cup of water or tea and a refreshed you.