We offer Soft Tissue Therapy here at TFD Therapy and it is a term that you may not be familiar with, or you may not be completely sure what it entails…let us explain!
What is Soft Tissue Therapy?
Soft tissue therapy is used to treat injuries or as a form of maintenance care for your body. It involves the manipulation and management of soft tissue structures including muscles, ligaments and tendons to aid someone’s day-to-day life or a specific sport. The focus will be on the rehabilitation of these structures to help prevent future injuries and it can be extremely beneficial to anybody, not just sports or gym specific people.
What does Soft Tissue Therapy involve?
If you have a particular pain or area of discomfort, then your therapist will use various assessments to determine where it is coming from and what could be the cause of your pain. From here there will be a lot of hands-on treatment including massage and other soft tissue techniques as well as potentially other complimentary therapies such as shockwave, dry cupping or dry needling. Following treatment there will be an element of your treatment based around rehab to enhance your treatment and enable you to get the most benefit from it, this may involve some advice, stretches or exercises to work on those areas.
What is the aim of Soft Tissue Therapy?
Soft tissue therapy techniques aim to help speed up the body’s natural healing process. The main aim of this treatment is to restore normal function in the tissues – whatever this normal function looks like for that individual. Soft tissue therapists will aim to get to the root cause of the symptoms instead of purely treating the symptoms, this will help to reduce the chance of recurrence. Soft tissue therapy is often also used as a maintenance treatment to improve general physical wellbeing.
What is the difference between Soft Tissue Therapy and Massage?
Soft tissue therapists have more in-depth knowledge of the human body and anatomy than a massage therapist. They use a wider range of techniques and hands-on treatment than purely massage therapy, even though it does include some form of massage.
What is the difference between Soft Tissue Therapy and Physiotherapy?
Soft tissue therapy uses the most effective hands-on therapy techniques to treat the most common chronic or minor injuries, aches and pains suffered through sport or day-to-day life. Therapists are not able to work with serious injuries in hospital, however, they can treat minor injuries in a sports team or gym setting for example. It focuses on getting to the bottom of the root cause of the pain to reduce injury risk reoccurring.
Physiotherapy is more academic, involving a 3-year university degree, and now generally it is based around more exercise-based therapy with very little hands-on treatment involved. It is more medical than soft tissue therapy as was previously taught through a hospital-based programme.
How can I book my Soft Tissue Therapy treatment?
At TFD Therapy we have both Josh and Jo, who are Level 5 Soft Tissue Therapists, and you can book an appointment with either of them at reception. Alternatively, you can call us on 01235 772995 or email us on therapy@tfdgym.co.uk. TFD Therapy welcomes both TFD gym members and non-members.
Please ask one of the team if you have any further questions regarding what we offer here at TFD Therapy.