Thai Yoga Sports Massage

Learn a new way of treating your clients with a treatment called Thai Yoga Sports Massage.

Thai massage has been applied to Thai sports men and women for many centuries to great effect. Thai boxers in particular enjoy treatments before and after training or competition. The treatment they receive is traditional Thai massage. The development of Sports Massage as we know it now in the west only started to develop in the early 1970s. This treatments combines the two approaches.

Sports massage is the application of specific techniques in order to manipulate soft tissue to support function, increase performance levels and the overall well-being of an athlete. General benefits of sports massage are:

• increased blood circulation, which assists in repairing micro-tears in sore muscles and decreases recovery time;
• affects the Central Nervous System, which stimulates specific muscle groups involved in athletic function;
• lengthens or broadens tissue, supporting flexibility in the range of motion of the athlete decreasing the chance for injury;
• creates a feeling of well-being, which overall supports positive coping strategies and motivation; and relaxation, which decreases overall muscle tension and returns the tissue to a tone conducive to resting and recovery.

Traditional Thai Massage is well known for its intensive and effective methods of stretching muscles. Combine these stretches with sports massage techniques and you create a treatment where the East meets the West and work in synergy to create a Thai Yoga Sports Massage.

The treatment can be described as both relaxing and invigorating. Together these techniques work deep into the athletes overworked muscles. Thai massage stretching techniques applied with sports massage techniques, including myofascial release, proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation, soft tissue release, muscle energy technique and trigger points, can work more effectively than Thai massage or sports massage on their own.

The big difference between traditional Thai massage and Thai sports massage is that unlike traditional Thai massage the client is unclothed, as a small amount of oil is sometimes used. Thai sports massage is mainly performed on a low massage table rather than on the floor. Our course in performed on a low massage couch. There is a misconception that Thai Yoga massage is always performed on a mat on the floor, which is certainly not the case in Thailand where treatments are often given on a low massage couch.