Getting a professional massage

When I went to the Netherlands, I obviously didn’t sleep in my own bed. And something about that didn’t agree with me. I sleep in my mum’s spare bed every time I travel back to the Netherlands, and it's always fine, but this time I must have been lying in a funny position, and I woke up with a loudly complaining muscle in my neck. It was rather unpleasant.

This sort of thing just goes away by itself in a few days. Normally, anyway. Not this time. The rest of my time in the Netherlands I was still be bothered by it, and even when I got back. I got fed up with it.

Some of my colleagues had alerted me to the existence of some health clinic on the Menai Strait high street, close to my office: Leaf Health. Both Chris and Susan had gone for a massage, and spoke highly of the experience. That sounded like a good place to start! So I booked me a remedial massage.

The masseur started with asking me why I was there, which was easily explained. Then he set to work. He first did some general back mobility things, and then focused on the problem area. I didn’t take him long to find it! And he went for it with his entire body weight. It was good.

After a while he said that if he would do any further manipulation it would become too much, so did I have any other ailments? And I mentioned my IT band. And he used the rest of the time to work on that. That was painful but it felt good. And at the end he gave me a few exercises, for both neck and IT band. He said I should work on the strength in the particular muscles that has been sore in my neck, and the flexibility of my IT bands and associated structures. Then he demonstrated them there and then, but he said he would send me recordings of the exercises in an app.

I went back to the office, feeling a whole lot better. And the days after I still felt a lot better. That was all due to the massage, and not the exercises; I did receive a message later that day about them, and I did manage to install the app, but I was a bit frustrated he had sent me 16 exercises, for my neck only. That's too much! Am I supposed to choose myself? That's his expertise!

Things didn't improve when it turned out that for some reason, I couldn't actually see the videos of the exercises. And just the thumbnail and name wasn't enough. I think I'll stick with what he demonstrated live, and hope I remember it correctly.

I hope I will get neither neck problems nor IT band problems any time soon! But if I do, I know where to go. And in the meantime I'll try to improve myself with the few exercises he demonstrated there and then…

Eight of the sixteen neck-related exercises he sent me