Our Lymphatics SME, Yvette Jordan, of UK Lymphology Clinics thinks your active clients may have lymphatic issues that a sports massage alone is not going to solve. She also has a special offer for TTH members.
Here we go, again! New year, new health regime, new exercise routines!
For all the athletes and health enthusiasts that I have treated over a forty-two-year massage career, I`ve always admired and envied them knowing I could never be like them unless you could find `competitive willpower` for sale somewhere.
They are the most challenging, in a great way, inspiring in an even better way, and hardworking of all our clientele. Whatever level of fitness they are starting from, a newbie completing a park run instead of watching a box set, someone weightlifting for an all-time personal best, a client hell-bent on attaining the perfect derrière, or the all-weather dedicated runner who insists on their regular `sports massage` whilst grimacing throughout the painful process, they are all driven and determined.
The other thing they all have in common is that during their training and competing they will have increased their `lymphatic load` to ‘overload’.
What is ‘lymphatic overload’ and what does it matter?
You`ve probably come across this occurring more often than you realise because, most likely, you will have discussed the symptoms with your clients and how to treat them whilst listening to their woes.
Lymphatic overload’ is too much metabolic waste combined with incorrect pressure distribution within a restrictive system that needs specific directional movement and regulation for optimal homeostasis.
Plain and simple, we have more rubbish in the bin than it can hold, and we have an overflow that is trapped and starts to stagnate or causes mysterious health issues to manifest, alerting us to a lymphatic system that is in distress and showing us that it is not happy.
Does it matter?
Injury-free faster recovery is key to increased sports performance.
Dealing with lymphatic overload is essential to support this.
As massage therapists, we can believe that more massage, any therapy, or any treatment will help these clients reduce their ailments when faced with symptoms of an increased lymphatic load. Certainly, more treatment is what your client needs, but if the lymph system is overwhelmed with metabolic waste, the treatment needs to be lymph system specific.
This means giving full attention to the lymph system and using the specific direction of the one-way lymphatic system to alleviate and regulate the balance of this ‘overload’.
There are enormous differences between blood flow massage techniques and lymph fluid lymphatic system massage.
They require different yet specific massage application approaches for optimum and effective outcomes. Both work exceptionally well when combined. Blood flow massage may eventually clear the problem along with the naturally occurring process of elimination, however a lymphatic massage will address the problem immediately and therefore attain quicker more efficient results with greater positive outcomes.
And I say this as the result of having seen so many cases where I have been either the `last resort` or have been presented with an ongoing recurring problem where the ailment or condition has been resolved simply because the lymphatic system was addressed in the right way.
A bit of history
Sports massage took nearly seventy years to come to the fore. It first aired at the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris, but was introduced into the UK until the 1990s. Since then, it has become a recognised and admired technique.
Coincidentally, MLD (manual lymph drainage) was also introduced in Paris, 12 years later in 1936. However, it never became mainstream in massage probably due to the term `drainage`. It had its origins in five years of medical research by Drs Emile and Estrid Vodder that provided proof that its usage and gentle touch reversed and healed sore swollen throats and as a result it was preferred to keep it within medical settings
Today is the time to move forward, recognise this is incredible massage technique and celebrate its revival.
More about the lymph system
The lymphatic system is very slow, directionally flowing and is seen as having two grossly uneven parts. It’s an enigma! It’s our immune system, linked to illness, cancer, Covid, and even lymphoedema, and is still the one system that seems to elude us as therapists nearly one hundred years after its discovery. New research into the system is constantly providing surprises.
Working with this elusive and complex system, you discover there are more than two sections and it may seem a minefield. I`m sure this is some source of the mystery and occasionally fearful approach therapists have. Yes, it needs understanding, but it also wants to be nurtured, stimulated, and helped in every way possible. It’s actually not that difficult when you know how to help your immune system function properly by working with it and not against it.
The Lymphatic System deals with metabolic waste and can get clogged up e.g. when athletes over train
If you have trained in MLD or CDT (Complete Decongestive Therapy), you are likely already to understand `lymphatic overload` in relation to lymphoedema. If you offer basic lymphatic massage, do you even realise just how powerful a massage tool you have in your therapy toolbox, which can be dusted down and updated?
Where next?
Whenever you and your clients train hard and tear muscle tissue apart to gain strength and build endurance, there is metabolic cellular waste happening in a neglected system that is continuously being overloaded. If you paid quality attention to make it work more effectively rather than ignoring it, your clients would reap the rewards. Classic signs and symptoms of ‘lymphatic overload’ are constant stiffness and soreness, swelling, fatigue, brain fog, sinus infections, allergies or other or regular, recurrent health problems, because the lymph system is not able to move in the right direction.
Do not stay confused in 2023 by treating the lymphatic system with a sports massage or any other massage technique because it is not the same and doesn’t respond the same way or move in the same direction. A sports massage will act to increase lymphatic load, when what your clients may need is an efficient emptying of their ‘bins’.
We have developed a one-day course to show you how to combine lymphatic work with your massage work to give clients the best of both worlds.
Resources for you
Expand your toolkit and complement and enhance all your current therapies.
Request a free download of lymphatic overload signs and symptoms in athletes. Email: contact@theuklc.com
Listen to the UKLC Podcast with sports and LIM (Lymphatic Integrated Massage) therapist Maxine Jimenez talking about how to knowing about the lymphatic system has changed her business and approach to helping clients. Email contact@theuklc.com for the link
Update and refresh your therapy toolkit in 2023 and fully understand the lymphatic system and treat ‘lymphatic overload’, with our one-day attended, dynamic Lymphatic Integrated Massage (LIM) training course.
Dates:
James Suther – North Training – Coventry – 15th & 16th April
Yvette Jordan – South Training – Brighton – 22nd & 23rd April
LIM was £350, until the end of March 2023 it is now £235
Special Offer for TTH members:
An early bird offer of £225 which ends at 9pm on Friday 10th March 2023.www.theuklc.com
Yvette Jordan has been a practising therapist for over 40 years. In 2006 she first ventured into the world of lymphatics, lymphoedema and cancer aftercare by training at the Lymphology Hospital in Germany.