Massage

I am recovering after a week of going after it in the gym. Lots of barbells, kettlebells, HIIT, complexes, etc. I pretty much felt like this.

And then yesterday I did something that I have been wanting to do for a long time, something that has been long overdue.

I got a massage.

There's a massage place in the shopping center where my work is and I have been meaning to visit for awhile. Lately my back has been sore and everything has just felt tight, so I finally made an appointment. I wanted a sports massage but they couldn't do one during the time I wanted. This ended up being deep tissue which is fine by me, whatever makes my muscles not tight anymore. When I got there they asked me what areas they should focus on and gave me a tour of the place. I wanted a full body massage to just get everything loosened up, but my main problem areas are my back, left quad, and right calf. Once I got into the darkened room and onto the warm table my therapist went to work on my back. This is when I realized - holy shit, my back is WAY worse than I thought. There were so many freakin knots in my back and shoulders. It was kinda painful at times. At one point she tried to move my shoulders a certain way and I had to tell her to stop because it really hurt. Reduced range of motion right there. The right side of my back was especially tight, which is probably why my right shoulder bothers me sometimes. It mainly bothers me when I sleep and doesn't impact lifting much. After extensive amounts of time spent on my back, shoulders, and traps, I got my arms/triceps, forearms, hands, legs, and feet massaged. My legs weren't bad aside from my right calf and surprisingly my right quad. 

I had no idea it was that bad. I'm going back in 3 weeks because there is still much more work to be done. And I think this will become a regular thing for me, because as active as I am I really need something to keep my muscles loose and healthy so I can perform. Especially because of the fact that the range of motion of my shoulders is limited right now because they are just so dang tight. Today I am hella sore but I do feel much better. Sleeping on my right side didn't hurt my shoulder as much last night. I'm looking forward to going back and seeing how much we can improve on this, and hopefully I'll see some good benefits in the long run.