Clinical Massage MK

Do you wake up during the night with painful cramps?

Has anyone told you to take magnesium for it?

I understand why. It's a common suggestion for regular cramps.

I used to suggest the same thing to clients who struggled with cramps, and maybe some electrolytes to top up their minerals.

But I did some research, because I was curious about what's actually happening to the muscle during a cramp.

And the research doesn't support magnesium or electrolytes as a fix for regular cramps. Magnesium users had about 20% fewer cramps a week, a difference most people wouldn't notice.

So what's going on?

A cramp isn't a muscle issue...

Your nerves glitch...

They tell the muscle to squeeze (contract), and then forget to switch it off (relax the muscle).

Nothing's missing from the muscle. The signal gets stuck.

The best way to release a cramp?

You guessed it. Stretch the muscle and wait until it releases. For a calf cramp, keep your knee straight and pull the top of your foot up towards your shin.

And if you want fewer of them, stretch before bed. One small study asked older adults to stretch their calves and hamstrings every night for six weeks, and they got fewer cramps. It's only one study, but it doesn't cost you anything.

If the cramps started around the time you began a new medication, check with your GP. Some medications can cause cramps as a side effect.

I wrote an in-depth article on what cramps are, what helps, what doesn't, and what to do beyond stretching.

Ever had pain in one spot that never fully shifts, no matter how much you stretch it?

Sometimes the answer is fascia.

The connective web wrapped around every muscle and organ in your body. When it gets stuck, it pulls, it stiffens, and it can refer pain somewhere else entirely.

Tessa has just qualified as a fascia ninja 🥷

with her Certificate in Advanced Myofascial Release from jingmassage

It means she can now release that stuck web with a lot more precision.

Well done Tessa.

If this sounds like your body, give us a shout and get booked in with her.

This is how it goes.

Someone has a few good weeks, the pain has eased, they’re moving and sleeping better, then one stressful week or a long drive and it flares back up.

And straight away they think they’re back to square one.

They’re not.

Recovery from long-standing pain goes up, down, and forward, and the dips get shallower as you go, even on the weeks that feel worse.

The week it flares is the week most people quit, right when things were starting to shift.

That’s why we start chronic pain on a six-session plan. It gives us time to see the pattern together instead of reading one rough week as a step back.

If you keep getting stuck in that stop-start cycle, send us a message and we can have a chat about what’s going on.

One workout won’t give you a six-pack. We all accept that. We know the body needs time, consistency, and a plan.

But when pain has been there for years, people often expect it gone in one session. I see it a lot.

I understand why. Living with pain is exhausting and people are tired of throwing money at things that don’t work. They want certainty before they commit.

But…

Session one isn’t where the pain disappears. It’s where we start figuring out what’s causing it, and build a treatment plan from there.

For most chronic cases, we start with a six-session plan. Sometimes that’s all someone needs. More often, it’s the foundation and we keep going from there.

And think about it this way. Once you finally get the six-pack, do you stop going to the gym? Or do you keep showing up to maintain it?

Getting out of pain is one job. Staying out of it is another.

If you’ve been struggling with pain for a long time and want to understand what’s going on, let’s have a chat.

What 14 years of treating chronic pain actually looks like between clients.

Some days, the brain runs hot.

Back-to-back clients. Complex cases. Treatment plans are turning over in my head while I’m meant to be eating lunch.

So I sit down for a minute, a piece of tissue in my hand, and somehow it ends up on my head. No plan. No clever reset technique. Just one of those moments where the body decides it needs a pause before the mind catches up.

Then I caught my reflection and thought, well, this is the job sometimes.

People assume clinical work is all assessment charts and treatment notes. Most of it is. But a small, slightly ridiculous part of it is figuring out how to keep your own nervous system steady so you can give the next client your full attention.

If you’re booked in this week, this is what’s happening between 😁 . Now you know.

“This was different.”

That was the first thing a new client said to me after her session yesterday. She used to have sports massage before and always felt very tired afterwards, so she expected the same from us. Even though we treated the same problem areas, she walked out feeling refreshed and relaxed instead.

There’s an old belief that good bodywork has to be brutal. That if you don’t leave feeling wrecked, the therapist hasn’t done their job. I disagree.

We still treat trigger points and the tight bands that are actually causing the pain. We just don’t need to beat the tissue up to get there.

Same outcome. Different route.

If you’ve been managing pain for a while and you’ve come out of massage feeling worse before feeling better, book an assessment at clinicalmassagemk.co.uk.

When did you last walk out of a massage feeling better instead of worse?

"Still no pain. Been two weeks now."

She said it… and looked surprised at herself.

When I asked if she was surprised, she shook her head.

"I'm not. I think I'm just… used to it now."
"I've been dealing with this back pain for 8 years. Daily aches. Flare-ups that would last for days."

She'd been in pain so long she'd forgotten what no pain felt like.

Until now.

Many clients say the same thing. When pain becomes your normal, it stops being something you fight.

It becomes background noise.

Something you plan around. Something you stop mentioning at dinner because nobody wants to hear it again.

In many cases the scans, MRI, blood tests all come back normal.

The shift doesn't happen because we chase the pain.

It happens because we stop and assess first. Figure out what's actually causing it. What the patterns are. Then treat that.

Not just where it hurts.

But why it hurts.

For chronic pain, we use a structured treatment plan.

Long enough to change the pattern, not just settle it for a few days.

If you've been living with persistent pain for years and nothing has helped yet…

Message us and let's have a chat to see if we can help you.

📍 Clinical Massage MK, Milton Keynes

5 things I'd do if my lower back was playing up tomorrow.

None of it is dramatic.

A walk.
Some hip mobility.
Breaking up long sitting blocks.
A tennis ball under the glutes.
And breathing into your lower back, which sounds odd until you try it and feel how much your rib cage can expand into the back of your body.

Try these for a week. If your back is still grumbling, it's worth getting it looked at.
Drop a comment or message us to book a free consultation.