Golf Massage vs a Regular Massage

The short answer

A regular massage is designed to make you feel relaxed. A golf massage is designed to give you back the rotation your swing needs. Same table, same hour, very little else in common. A golf massage is assessed before it is delivered, it targets the specific joints and tissues a swing loads, and at Muscle Therapy I do most of that work with Active Release Technique, which treats tissue while the joint is moving instead of while you lie still.

What a regular massage is actually for

There is nothing wrong with a relaxation massage. Broad strokes, even pressure, whole body, oil, quiet room. It settles your nervous system, it feels good, and for plenty of people that is exactly what they booked it for.

What it will not do is change how far your lead hip turns. It is not built to. The therapist works the whole body at roughly the same depth, in the same order, and nothing is assessed beforehand because there is nothing specific to find.

What a golf massage does differently

It starts with questions rather than a towel. Where does it hurt, and when in the swing. Which side. How many rounds a week, do you walk, do you carry. Have you changed anything about your swing recently.

Then I watch you rotate. Hips, mid back, lead shoulder, neck. In golfers the restriction is almost never where the pain is, which is why so many people arrive having had their lower back rubbed for a year without it helping.

From there the session is specific. Twenty minutes on one hip is normal if that hip is the reason your back hurts. The rest of the body might not get touched at all.

The difference, side by side

• Assessment. A regular massage starts when you lie down. A golf massage starts with movement testing, and what it shows decides the plan.
• Target. Relaxation massage covers everything evenly. Golf work goes after rotation: hip internal rotation, thoracic rotation, the lead shoulder, the forearms.
• Technique. Gliding strokes, versus specific tension held on a precise structure while you move the joint through its range.
• How it feels. Pleasant throughout, versus uncomfortable in short bursts on the two or three spots that matter.
• What you judge it by. A relaxation massage is judged by how you feel. Golf work is judged by whether you can turn further than you could an hour earlier.
• Timing. A relaxation massage suits any day. Golf work is planned around your rounds, which matters more than people expect.

What golf actually asks of your body

A swing is a fast rotation under load, repeated, and almost always in one direction. That one-sidedness is what separates golf from most sports, and it shows up in the same five places.

• Hip rotation. Your hips are built to turn a long way and your lumbar spine is built to turn barely at all. When a hip stops rotating, the lower back absorbs the twist instead. That is the mechanism behind most golf back pain, and there is more detail in why golf gives you lower back pain.
• Thoracic rotation. The mid back has to supply most of the turn. Hours in a car or at a desk stiffen it, and then the shoulders and the lumbar spine compensate.
• Lead shoulder. At the top of the backswing the lead shoulder is at the end of its range under tension. If the rotator cuff and pec minor are restricted, that is where it bites. There is a separate post on shoulder pain at the top of your backswing.
• Forearms and elbows. Grip pressure, range mats, hardpan lies and heavy divots all load the wrist flexors. Golfer's elbow sits on the inside of the elbow and starts in the forearm, not in the joint.
• Glutes and hamstrings. They stabilise the pelvis while everything above it turns. Restricted or weak, and the pelvis slides instead of rotating.

What is Active Release Technique?

Active Release Technique, usually shortened to ART, is a hands-on method for treating soft tissue that has lost its ability to slide. Muscles, tendons, fascia and nerves are meant to glide over one another. Repeated load, old injuries and long hours in one position lay down adhesions between those layers, and tissue that cannot slide cannot lengthen.

In practice it works like this. I find the restricted structure by hand, hold tension on it in a specific direction, and then you move the joint through its range while I keep that tension. The tissue is treated under motion rather than at rest. It is uncomfortable for a few seconds at a time, then it is done.

I am certified in full-body ART®, completed in stages: spine in 2015, lower limbs in 2016 and upper limbs in 2017. Each certification is a separate set of protocols, which is why the full-body qualification takes years rather than a weekend.

Why ART suits golf specifically

Golf is a movement problem, not a tightness problem. A golfer does not need looser muscles in general, they need a hip that completes its rotation and a mid back that turns. ART is built for exactly that, for four reasons.

• It is treated under motion. A golfer's restriction only shows up at the end of range, in rotation, under load. Treating the tissue while the joint travels through that range addresses the restriction where it exists rather than where it is comfortable to work.
• It is specific. ART treats individual structures, not regions. In golf, the difference between the piriformis and the deep rotators behind it, or between pec minor and subscapularis, is the difference between a session that changes your turn and one that does nothing.
• It treats the layers between tissues. Much of what limits a golfer is not a short muscle but two structures stuck to each other. Stretching pulls on both ends and does nothing to the join. ART works on the join.
• You can test it in the room. Rotate before, rotate after. Either you turn further or you do not. That keeps it honest, and it means I can tell you after one session whether this is going to work for you.

There is a fuller explanation of the method on the Active Release Technique page, and it sits alongside trigger point work and myofascial release in a normal sports massage session.

Golfer's elbow, and why ART is the one I reach for

Golfer's elbow is pain on the inside of the elbow, where the wrist flexor tendons attach. People treat the elbow and it does not help, because the problem is usually adhesion through the forearm flexors further down, pulling on an attachment that is already irritated.

ART on the forearm flexors, with the wrist moving through flexion and extension, treats the length of the muscle instead of the sore attachment point. It also tends to be the quicker route, because you are not working directly on inflamed tendon.

When to book around your golf

Timing matters more than most people realise.

• Two or three days before a competition, not the day before. Deep work the day before an important round is a reliable way to play stiff.
• The same day or the next day after a heavy stretch, three or four rounds in a week on a golf holiday, is the best use of a single session.
• Every two weeks through the Algarve season if you are playing several rounds a week. Fortnightly is the rhythm most of the golfers I see settle on.
• Straight away if something is new, rather than playing on it for a month. New restrictions resolve in a session or two. Old ones take four.

Booking

I treat golfers at the clinic in Almancil, a few minutes from Quinta do Lago and Vale do Lobo, and I travel to Quinta do Lago, Vale do Lobo and Vilamoura for mobile appointments.

Clinic sessions are €37 for 30 minutes, €52 for 45 and €60 for the hour. For a first golf assessment book the hour, because testing rotation properly and then treating what it shows does not fit into thirty minutes. Mobile is €140 per hour. WhatsApp 925 382 490 and tell me where it hurts and when in the swing.