How Soft Tissue Therapy relieves pain, eases scar tissue, supports musculoskeletal health, and boosts circulation.

Soft Tissue Therapy is an individualised, hands-on approach focused on managing, manipulating, and rehabilitating the body’s soft tissues, including muscles, ligaments, and tendons. The Association for Soft Tissue Therapists (SMA) recognises Soft Tissue Therapy as an important part of supporting musculoskeletal health and physical wellbeing.

The musculoskeletal system plays a fundamental role in how we move, function and perform our everyday activities. Our muscles, connective tissues, ligaments and tendons also interact with other systems within the body, including the nervous, immune, lymphatic and fascial systems, to name a few.

A soft tissue therapist takes an individualised and holistic approach, considering how factors such as movement, posture, activity levels, lifestyle and physical demands may be contributing to tension, discomfort or restricted movement.

Soft Tissue Therapy is not just for athletes or people who participate in sport. It suits people of all ages, activity levels, and abilities.

Whether you spend most of your day sitting at a desk, have a physically demanding job, exercise regularly, are pregnant or navigating a particular stage of life, are recovering from surgery or are simply experiencing the physical effects of everyday life, Soft Tissue Therapy can help support your movement and overall physical wellbeing.

What is Soft Tissue Therapy if it’s not a massage?

Soft Tissue Therapy takes an individualised approach to the body and person.

It involves an in-depth discussion, movement assessment, and a subjective and objective assessment. This information will then guide the most appropriate approach and treatment plan.

Treatment can address the soft tissues while considering lifestyle, movement patterns, physical activity levels and recovery requirements. This may include massage if it is likely to have an optimal effect on your treatment goals.

As well as massage, your therapist may incorporate a range of techniques that fall under the umbrella of Soft Tissue Therapy. These may include Soft Tissue Release (STR), Instrument-Assisted Soft Tissue Mobilisation (IASTM), Muscle Energy Techniques (MET), mobility exercises, stretching, Myofascial Release (MFR), and manual mobilisation techniques.

Your treatment will be tailored to your individual needs, using the most appropriate techniques. During and following your treatment, your therapist will then re-assess any movements that are restricted or painful to determine the effectiveness of the treatment. They will also discuss plans for continued treatment and, if required, the involvement of the wider multi-disciplinary team to support your recovery.

When do I need Soft Tissue Therapy?

Soft Tissue Therapy will have a positive impact on your performance whether at work, at home or in sport. It is influential in supporting the management of any injuries, aches, pains and stresses that may inhibit this.
This may include:

● Occupational tightness, imbalances, stress or pain caused by long hours sitting or at a desk/computer.
● Promoting effective physical and mental recovery from exercise or work.
● Mitigating the risk of injury.
● As part of a rehabilitation programme to return to a daily active lifestyle or sport.
● Preparation for an important gym or sports-based training session.
● Periodisation of Soft Tissue Therapy to complement your training programme for
a competition or event.
● Post-operative scar work to improve soft tissue mobility and function.

Soft Tissue Therapy for Scars

Soft Tissue Therapy effectively reduces the formation and appearance of scars.

Scar tissue formation is a natural part of the wound healing process following a surgical procedure. Soft Tissue Therapy includes effective techniques to promote the formation of scar tissue and optimise the healing process.

Our therapists focus on reducing any tightness, restriction of movement and function that can be a result of scarring.

How Can Soft Tissue Therapy Help?

● Improve appearance.
● Reduce pain.
● Overcome restrictions in movement and function.

Despite these benefits, treatment of this tissue is a pathway often overlooked by health professionals during the recovery process.

Scar tissue occurs when collagen fibres form over an injury site to help protect and strengthen the wound. These fibres are built up in a random pattern and are more fibrous and less malleable than the previous tissue. Restrictions to your normal range of movement can occur when tension due to scarring occurs in the surrounding connective tissues to the wound.

Wound healing is a complex process which, when simplified, can be split into three main stages:
● The initial or inflammatory stage. This occurs for roughly 3-6 days after surgery. Inflammation in the form of redness, heat and swelling is a product of the immune response, which kick-starts the repair process.

During stage one, soft tissue treatment will focus on assisting the body to reduce swelling using gentle strokes away from the wound site whilst avoiding direct pressure or manipulation.

● The proliferation phase can last up to 4 weeks (or longer, depending on the wound size). During this phase, special cells begin to lay down the new collagen fibres and new blood vessels are formed. If pain levels allow it, mobilisation of the scar area can begin to encourage blood flow, increase movement, and reduce the formation of unhelpful adhesions.

● The maturation or remodelling stage can last up to 24 months. New collagen forms and increases the strength of the tissue as well as changes the shape of the wound area.

In this third stage, more intense treatment can begin to restore any movement restriction caused by fibrous adhesions, scar tissue or shortened structures.

Direct work on the scar itself can begin once the wound has closed, and the risk of infection has passed.

Soft Tissue Therapy can be an effective technique to efficiently remodel scar tissue during the rehabilitation process.

Scar tissue is never as functional as the original tissue. However, post-surgery or injury, the inclusion of scar tissue release in soft tissue treatment can help make significant and long-lasting changes.

If you want to book an appointment with a Soft Tissue Therapist that specialises in scar treatment, follow the link or give your nearest clinic a call.

Soft Tissue Therapy – Pure Sports Medicine

Soft Tissue Therapy is for everyone, and it can significantly enhance rehab and recovery as part of a tailored, multidisciplinary approach to ensure you receive the care that your individual picture requires.

Our team of Soft Tissue Therapists specialise in a range of different treatments to enhance training, injury prevention and recovery, together with supporting the management of ongoing musculoskeletal conditions as well as those that present during certain life stages.

We treat a wide variety of people with many different issues, and our team is always available for an initial discussion about what approach would be best for you before you get started.

How often can you have Soft Tissue Therapy?

This depends largely on the individual; you need to take into account variables such as how often and how intensely you train, how long you sit, and how you respond to load and treatment. A Soft Tissue Therapist will be able to advise more accurately after the initial assessment and discuss an ideal management plan for you.

What is the benefit of regular Soft Tissue Therapy?

Regular Soft Tissue Therapy has much the same effect as anything else we do regularly. It provides a way to load the soft tissue structures and systems of the body to stimulate adaptation and change in a positive way. As we lead busier, sometimes less active, and stressful lives, we take for granted the effect this has on us, and we become accepting of aches, pains and dysfunction.

Read more about Soft Tissue Therapy for stress.

Soft Tissue Therapy is influential in helping manage this and reduce the impact this has on our physical and mental health. Improving mobility, body awareness, and sleep, reducing stress and anxiety, and mitigating the risk of injury are just a few benefits. We want our physical and mental states to spend more time in a rest, digest and restorative parasympathetic state rather than a fight, flight and freeze state.

Frequency and duration of treatment depend on the individual, but it can relate to how long you have had the issue, how your body responds and the environment that may be driving the need for treatment. Regular Soft Tissue Therapy can vary from once a week to monthly as per your individual needs.

How to book Soft Tissue Therapy

Find out more about Soft Tissue Therapy.

You are able to contact our bookings team on 020 7788 7000 or via [email protected].

Your first session will be 60 minutes and will include an initial consultation, assessment, and the beginning of treatment.

Subsequent treatments are 60, 45 or 30 minutes long.

Find out more:

Soft Tissue Therapy for Golfers
Soft Tissue Therapy for Runners
Soft Tissue Therapy at The Olympics
Soft Tissue Therapy Can Help The ‘Pain’ of Football Training