I have been having regular visits over the last couple of months to my local Chiropractic clinic who also have a sports massage chap.
http://www.chiropractic.uk.com/index.html
I have long been convinced that injury’s do not just appear, unless you have a physical incident, ie foot down a rabbit hole or an big fall from grace off of a bike. Normally I find those niggly little injury’s, ie muscle strains etc, are caused by something else impinging on the area and a slow build up until they become chronic or an annoyance affecting performance.
I have always had a very unstable lower back, in fact I can do a bit of self manipulation stretching my back if I feel a bit ‘asymmetrical’ at times, which can be a little unnerving for anyone listening to the cracks. This tends to then trigger other factors if not kept in check, such as muscle imbalances and general deep muscle tightness, which then leads on to overuse injury’s elsewhere.
I tend to have an MOT with the Chiropractor every 3 or 4 months now to keep me right, but recently have been having some good value sports massage from his colleague too, concentrating mainly on sorting me out after any running races which tend to leave me not being able to walk down the stairs properly the next morning.
The two treatments together, particularly some deep muscle massage in my glute’s have kept a couple of niggles at bay recently, including a calf strain and a troublesome inner hamstring.
Throughout the years I have used all sorts of ‘practitioners’ its just a case of finding a combination that works for you.