Sports Massage
You don’t have to be a competitive athlete to benefit from this program! Sports massage is geared toward professional athletes and weekend warriors alike to help improve sports performance, boost flexibility, and address existing or potential injuries. Delayed muscle soreness (24-48 hours after exercise) may be caused by a number of factors. These include minor muscle or connective tissue damage, local muscle spasms that reduce blood flow, or a buildup of waste products.
Trigger points may also cause muscle soreness and decreased flexibility. These are specific spots in the muscle and tendons which cause pain when pressed, and which may radiate pain into a larger area. Heavily exercised muscles may also lose their capacity to relax, causing chronically tight (hypertonic) muscles, and loss of flexibility. Lack of flexibility is often the cause of sore muscles and predisposes you to injuries, especially muscle tears and pulls. A variety of strokes and techniques are used to help reduce muscle tension, increase range of motion, improve soft tissue function, reduce swelling, as well as decrease muscle stiffness and fatigue.
A sports massage treatment will depend on the goals of the individual athlete. Sports massage can be broken down into three categories: pre-event massage, post-event massage, and maintenance massage.

Pre-Event Massage
Pre-event massage is performed one to two days before a competitive event. The goal is to increase blood flow, warm and relax the muscles, and stimulate circulation. This will increase the supply of nutrients and oxygen to the muscles, as well as mentally stimulate the athlete. Most of the time, the massage will consist of quick, pumping strokes. At this time, no deep tissue or specific work is done.
Post-Event Massage
Post-event massage is performed one to two days after an event. The focus is to aid the recovery process by reducing inflammation and soreness, increasing range of motion (ROM), and helping muscle trauma and microtears to heal.
Maintenance Massages
Maintenance work will include regular massage work including myofascial release, trigger point therapy, and deep tissue to address any injuries or imbalances through massage, stretching, and strengthening.
Benefits
Benefits for You:
Sports Massage comes with many benefits. As a preventative treatment sports massage is intended to protect you from getting injuries by keeping your body flexible and stress free.
- Increases the effectiveness of recovery from heavy training
- Identify specific areas of vulnerability for you to focus on
- Allows you to have hard training days back to back
- Improves athletic performance, endurance and mental focus
- Reduces injury recovery time and prevents injuries
- Improves circulation while removing lactic acid buildup and cellular waste
- Creates a feeling of well-being and balance in the body
What It's Like
Medical and sports massage practitioners are licensed massage therapists (LMTs) who possess advanced training and experience in anatomy and physiology, soft tissue pathologies and injuries, and evidence- based protocols for treating them. The techniques they use are quite different from “spa” or Swedish massage as they’re focused on restoring balanced function to injured muscles, muscle groups, and fascia—the latter being the remarkable substance made of collagen and elastin fibers that shields the entirety of our tissues and organs, and binds them together.
In order to access these structures, therapists employ deep tissue work, most often drawn from Neuromuscular Therapy (NMT), Myofascial Release, and Trigger Point therapies. Our sports massage offerings also incorporate these techniques, but are specifically tailored to assist our weekend and professional athletes to compete at peak performance levels, as well as safely recover from their events.




Therapists

Robert Costa
Medical Massage Specialist
Robert Costa, a graduate of the New Mexico School of Natural Therapeutics, has been practicing full-time in NM for twelve years. He’s worked primarily in medical massage environments.

Nancy McManus
Medical Massage Specialist
Nancy received her initial training at the Massage Institute of New England in Cambridge, MA with a focus on Swedish Massage. Nancy McManus is a dedicated body work professional with a compassionate and intuitive touch.
Words of Our Clients
Get Addicted to Feeling Good
I’m new to town and needed a local sports massage place to deal with a recent injury and to go to for regular body work. Jennifer and her staff are very nice, easy to work with, and really take care of you. Best place in town if you ask me! I’m a very active person and need a goto place like this to keep my body working right. So happy i found them. Highly recommended!
I have gone to Whole Body Wellness about once a month for a coupla years. Jennifer is just the best deep tissue masseuse ever. She is very nice very knowledgeable and very strong. This is not fluffy massage. This is genuinely therapeutic massage which has helped my back, legs and feet immeasurably. I would recommend Whole Body Wellness to any human who has sore muscles that need relief.
Wonderful place. Alex is awesome and helped my neck and shoulder pain. Definitely worth trying.