During today’s session, I spent 1.5 hours at the training clinic at Argaum. Only one player came in for treatment this evening however, it was a lengthy process.
The player had been complaining of back pain and shoulder pain. Due to the player’s position as front row, it was most likely due to tightness in the muscles. I started by doing a spinal assessment to make sure it was just due to tightness by testing the players’ ROM in the Cervical, thoracic and lumbar spine. After this had been completed I began to massage the whole back starting in the lower back with the erector spine and working upwards to the traps. I used effleurage, petrissage and different kinds of tapotement to help relieve some of the pain and tension in the area. This player was not training this evening due to the pain they had been in so I made sure to work deeply into the muscles to help the player feel the effectiveness of the massage more. Then I spoke to the player about possible things they could do at home to ease this pain such as stretches, not sitting too long, keeping good posture, etc.

Areas for improvement:

This session was not out of my comfort zone at all. I am used to doing back massages and have no problem doing this; however, when doing the initial spinal assessment I had to go through the process myself to be able to remember it so doing the movements as I asked my client to do them. This is not a bad thing as it also helps the client to do the movements themselves. However, I need to be able to remember an efficient way of doing an assessment to make sure the process does not take longer than necessary.