New Client Welcome
Information for Your First Session
First of all, welcome! Thank you so much for booking a session with us, and we’re very much looking forward to meeting you.
Here you’ll find information about what to expect in your first session, tips to make the most of your first session, and what to expect/do after along with options for going forward.
If we’ve missed anything or you have any questions, please feel free to email us, reply to your booking confirmation or get in touch via our ‘contact us’ form above.
What to Expect In Your First Session
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What to Expect in Your First Session
You may find our sessions feel a little bit different to other sport and remedial massage therapy sessions you may have had before. This is a quick overview of what you can expect with us and why we include the things we do in the session.
Your Goal & Case History
We always want to know what your goal is for the session.
We do a case history including posture and movement tests, and retest during the session.
We check how you feel to help with your connection with your body and to see how everything’s going. During the session, we explain what we’re doing and why and we finish with one or two self-care practices for you to take with you.
The reason we ask what your goal is for the session is because the therapist will design your session around your goal.
We always want to know what you’d like to walk out with so that everything we do is towards that end. (A little more about how to choose your goal or what to consider is in the second video.)
History, Posture and Movements
The more we can zero in and be targeted in a session, the faster we can achieve results for you.
Your history, posture and movements all give us important information that allow us to understand what’s going on with you and what’s likely to create the most improvement in just that first session.
It also creates a before for us to test after, so we can see what the progress is and assess potential underlying causes to kind of piece together the puzzle.
Now it may seem weird for us to ask you to get up and down off the table during a session to test but retesting is incredibly helpful.
It shows us how much what we’re doing is making a difference and maybe if something we thought was going to help isn’t helping as much.
It helps you understand how your body relates to itself.
So we might release something in one area of the body that totally changes another area and we wouldn’t know that connection if we weren’t testing as we go and it also gives us a sense of how big or small various potential causes are.
Is it your chest tension causing the problem or your calf tension causing the problem? Is it your hamstring tension causing the problem or the quads causing the problem?
We’ve discovered so many interesting things about people’s bodies when we’re retesting – and don’t worry, we don’t get you up and down off the table every couple of minutes.
We’ll retest as much as we need to be effective, which for more specific chronic, painful issues may be a little bit more, whereas if you’re just coming for maintenance we might just get you up once halfway through, just so you can kind of see what difference it makes to do one part of the body before we move on to the other.
Now, we don’t talk to you through the entire session, right?
Or we don’t have to anyway.
But we do like to explain what we’re doing and why we’re doing it so that you understand our thinking and how things relate to each other in your body.
Because if you understand how your body works you’re better equipped to take care of yourself when you’re not in a session with us.
We always say we’re with you for one hour, you’re with yourself for the other six days, twenty four hours a day. The more you understand about what we’re doing and why, the easier it is that you can take care of yourself.
Now, we definitely can include some quiet relaxing time with some deep tissue or Swedish massage and that’s something that we can talk about in the beginning of the session.
If you’d like to have some just relaxing chill-out massage time, definitely let us know.
Then, we always finish with one or two self-care exercises.
Now, by only choosing one or two things, it means we can see which exercise is helping which ache or pain the most.
That way you always know when I want to help this problem I do this self-care exercise and when I have this problem I do this self-care exercise versus being given a list of ten or twenty exercises that you have to do every single day and you don’t actually know which one it is that helps you.
We also talk about what you’d like to do going forward in future sessions but I’m going to talk to you a bit more about that in the third video.
Now that you’ve completed the what to expect in your session, it’s time for the next video which is how to get the most out of your session, where I answer some of the frequently asked questions that we get from new clients.
Thank you so much for taking the time to watch these videos that we’ve put together for you, or read through the transcript, or listen to the audio. We really hope it’s going to help you get the most out of your session and we can’t wait to see in your first appointment.
Get the Most Out of Your Session & FAQs
Audio
How to Get the Most Out of Your Session
Links
How to get the Most out of your Session
In this video, the second in our welcome series, I’m answering some of the common questions that we get from clients ahead of their first session. Here’s what we’ll cover in this second video:
No. 1. Thinking about your goal for the session. How do you choose what you want to have or what your goal is?
No. 2. Arriving on time to give yourself a little bit of space.
No. 3. What to wear for the session?
No. 4. Can I train before or after my appointment?
No. 5. What to bring and tips around food and drink before and after the session.
As we talked about in the first video, your therapist is always going to ask you what is your goal for the session. It’s worth thinking about what you’d like your goal to be ahead of coming.
Now, you may already know, right? You may have come and booked a session with us because you have a specific issue like calf tension or shoulder pain, or you may be training for a marathon or you may be getting really tired and achy shoulders when you’re working at a desk and that’s perfectly fine. You want help with the problem, that can be your goal for the session.
But some other ideas might be:
- getting some tips for what you can do on your own or to take better care of yourself when you’re not in a session with a massage therapist.
- getting an understanding of potential reasons why it may have happened or
- things that you might want to change in your day-to-day life to stop it from coming back, and
- you may just want to feel less stressed and more relaxed because obviously massage is very good for stress management and relaxation.
Now a quick note on arrival time.
We recommend that you arrive one or two minutes early just in case you’d like to freshen up a bit before your session.
Unfortunately, due to current regulations we have to be pretty strict about start and finish times because we must have 15 minutes of cleaning and ventilation between clients.
If you do arrive before your start time, we really appreciate your understanding that we probably won’t be able to welcome you into the clinic before your scheduled start time and that way are not able to extend sessions in the case of late arrivals, partly due to coronavirus regulations and partly out of fairness to other clients.
If you need any help with finding us, parking, what tube to take, any other transport details, you can check out our locations page which is linked below this video.
At Leyton and Angel, if you find yourself really early you can wait at nearby cafes because as of the time of this recording we aren’t allowed to let people wait in the waiting areas at the gym due to regulations around social distancing.
At Walthamstow, we do have some benches outside the room or you’re welcome to grab a coffee or wander around a little bit on the site. There are some covered awnings and heat lamps if it’s a bit chilly.
What should you wear?
This is one of the most common questions we get. Honestly, it doesn’t really matter. People come straight from work in suits and ties and dresses. People come after a workout. People come in chill leggings and a t-shirt.
If you wanted to make it a little bit easier on us, it can be helpful to wear form-fitting clothes that are easy to move in and this means that we’re able to do the posture and movement tests in your clothes versus asking you to remove anything so we can see your bones and your shoulders, and knees and hips positions.
If you wear separates, so for example a top and a bottom versus a dress, that means that if we’re only working on one part of your body that you wouldn’t need to fully get undressed down to your underwear if that’s something you prefer.
We are totally used to seeing people in their underwear and obviously you’re covered with a sheet while you’re on the table but we know that some people feel a bit uncomfortable about getting undressed when they’re in a massage so that’s definitely an option for you.
If you wear a bra, we usually have clients keep their bra on when they’re on the table.
If you have a back opening bra that’s the most helpful for us and you do need to wear underwear (I know it probably seems like something I shouldn’t have to say but not everybody wears underwear and we do require people to have underwear when they’re in the clinic or to have shorts that are flexible enough that they can go all the way up your leg).
Ultimately, it doesn’t really matter to us what you wear as long as you’re wearing underwear and you’re comfortable, we can basically work around anything else.
Can you train before? Can you train after?
Now, training before your session is basically always fine. I literally can’t think of a reason why it wouldn’t be.
If it’s right before, please do if you wouldn’t mind having a quick shower before you come in for your session.
Sometimes we do have clients who literally come straight from training into the room and that can be quite difficult.
It’s quite hard to massage someone who’s very, very sweaty and we recommend that you not do anything too strenuous in the 24 hours after your first session with us or in general a session with us, but just so you can plan to kind of rest in the first 24 hours after your session.
Eating and drinking, and what to bring
It’s totally fine to eat before you come.
There’s no real restriction about not having a meal. You might not want to eat a huge meal because sometimes if you’re really stuffed it can feel uncomfortable on the table but it doesn’t really affect us as far as the massage.
If you tend to have fluctuating blood sugar, especially if you’ve any type of diabetes or if you just get low blood sugar, you may want to bring a drink or a small snack with you because massage can have a similar effect as exercise does to blood sugar levels which is that it can drop and definitely make sure that you don’t drink any alcohol before you come for your session.
As far as what to bring, you definitely want to bring a mask with you for right now and we do ask clients to take their shoes off when they come in the door. Bear that in mind if you want to make sure that you’re wearing socks that you’re happy to wear in the room.
As far as taking payments, we are currently accepting card payments only, or if you’d like to arrange a bank transfer before your session we can give you our bank details.
I think that I have answered all the questions that we usually get, so hopefully I’ve covered yours. If you have a question that wasn’t listed here and included here, definitely let me know. You can send an email to info@leytonsportsmassage.com and I will make sure that we answer that for you.
Now, for the next video which is after your session.
Locations Page Link – click here
After Your Session - What to Expect & Options
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After Your Session – What to Expect & Options
After your Session – what to expect and your options going forward.
We’re going to talk about what you can expect in the first 24 to 48 hours, the next three to five days, a little bit about tracking your progress and your options, some of the options that we have for you going forward.
Now, immediately after be prepared to experience some post-massage soreness.
This really varies from person to person. Some people get what feels like a flare-up of the reason they came in. The day after sometimes it can be almost like it’s gotten worse than gotten better which can be very discouraging; right?
This is very normal and don’t worry about it if it’s the first 24 to 48 hours.
Sometimes it just feels like it’s a bit sore or bruisy or worked on.
Now, not everybody has this. Some people get absolutely no soreness in the first 24 to 48 hours but we’d rather let you know it’s likely to happen and have it not happen than not prepare you for it and then have you be like why do I feel worse after my session? It’s very, very normal.
Make a note of what you feel and where because it’s really helpful to us when we know where you’re sore and what it feels like after your first session.
Make sure you give your body a rest because it’s integrating the effects of the massage and with very little exception it almost is never as bad as the first session when you have it.
The first session is kind of moving things around and opening things up and your body’s a little bit like whoa, what’s going on.
It’s very rare that your post-massage soreness is as intense in future sessions as it is in the first session. You’ll usually still get it but just not as strongly as in the first session.
Now in the next three to five days after the session you usually get further improvements.
This is always great when we hear this but it’s really, really common for clients to get another ten to twenty percent improvement over what they had at the end of the session.
Now obviously there’s exceptions and not everybody’s the same but this is on average what we find.
If you can notice how you feel in the days after, what is the most improved from the work we did and what’s the least improved, it really helps us when we’re deciding what to do with you in future sessions if you decide to have them.
It’s really helpful if you can track how and when it comes back.
If you can track when and what was the most improvement you had and when that improvement was.
Was it five days later, what is a week later? When does it start to come back and how quickly does it come back?
Is it like great, great, great, great and then in one day it just all comes back at the same time or does it come back like ten percent at a time and then another ten percent, and then the next day’s another ten percent.
It also helps us know if you notice what you did before it came back because that may be an aggravating factor for it.
This really helps us if and when you come for future sessions, as it helps us to focus on what next and how much of it is something you’re currently doing in your day-to-day life that maybe we need to adjust and how much it’s just historic to dig out. You can see the water bucket analogy for details.
Just so you know, it is incredibly rare to get 100 percent improvement after one session.
Usually the longer you’ve had the problem, the longer it takes to come back and it’s not like a one-to-one.
It’s not like if you’ve had it for five years it takes five years to get rid of it, but it might be like, if you’ve had it for one year it might take two or three sessions.
If you’ve had it for three years it might take four to six sessions and if you’ve had it for five years it might take seven sessions, as an example.
Tracking really helps us to get as targeted as possible so we can help you get as much improvement as possible in the number of sessions that you have.
Now, you have a number of choices going forward and I always like to say we don’t care what your plan is, we just want to encourage you to have a plan.
Because if you don’t have a plan for your self-care, you’re more likely to get it to come back again or it comes back again more quickly.
If you’re choosing as far as massage, you could have a series of weekly or fortnightly sessions that will get rid of the tension that’s built up over time, help you instill new habits and self-care for long term improvement.
If it’s not a really serious problem or you just want to keep on top of things, you might be looking at a monthly or six weekly maintenance session which just helps you keep track of what’s going on, give you a little bit of accountability for your self-care, make sure nothing builds up too much because you’re not leaving too long between sessions.
Then the third option is as and when.
In ‘as and when’, you’re doing the work primarily on your own.
You’re doing your self-care, your posture adjustments, everything and then you come back as and when you feel a niggle, an ache or a pain.
Now a lot of people have combinations of this.
You might initially have a series of weekly or fortnightly sessions and then once you’ve gotten rid of the problem you move to a monthly maintenance session.
You may have a series of weekly or fortnightly sessions and then move to as and when because you want to mainly do it on your own.
You may do as and when for a while and then decide you want to have a monthly maintenance because it’s easier for you to keep on top of it if you have someone seeing you on a regular basis.
You don’t have to choose any single one.
It can be a combination but it’s just a good idea to be aware of what your options are.
If you’re asking your therapist for advice, we’ll usually say we like to book you in for a follow-up appointment in one to two weeks after your first session, because we really learn a lot more about what’s going on with you when we see how you respond to that first session, when we see how much soreness you had and what’s the most improvement you had and how quickly did that improvement go away, how quickly did the issue come back.
That allows us to give you better advice than just what we see in the first appointment.
Now if you’re looking at maintenance sessions, you might be interested in our membership.
It’s especially for people who want to see us on a monthly basis. Then if you have any additional sessions in a month you can get ten percent off.
You can gift up to three a year and then we have an exercise prescription service that you can get for free as a member. If you’d like more information on membership and what’s included, there’s a link under this video.
We also have a VIP intensive package.
This is really for people who have a serious issue that’s been bothering them for a long time and they want some really high touch support.
You get between session voice, texts or emails, exercise prescription software and when you finish the package a self-care blueprint for yourself going forward and a few other things.
If you’d like more details, there’s a link below this. If you sign up to it within a week of having your first session you can use the fee from your first session as a partial credit towards the package – if you sign up within a week.
Those are your options going forward and some things to bear in mind as far as tracking and what to expect, as far as post-massage soreness, et cetera, and I’ll say it again.
I’ve already said it once but I’ll say it again.
We genuinely do not mind what your plan is, whether it’s including us in multiple sessions or having as few sessions with us as possible, we are 100 percent here to support what works best for you.
We just want to encourage you to choose a plan that works for you because if you have a plan you’re much more likely to have a longer-term improvement than if you just kind of have a session here or there, don’t really think about your self-care and then just deal with it when it gets bad again.
That’s just going to leave you in a kind of depressing groundhog day kind of loop.
Thank you so much for taking the time to watch these videos. I know it’s time out of your day. I hope they’ve been helpful for you in preparing for your sessions with us and we cannot wait to see you in your first session.
Membership Link – click here
Video for Bucket Analogy – click here
VIP Package – click here