Have I told you about the massages? I don't think I've told you about the massages. I've been getting near weekly massages since we started training hard. If that makes you sigh in envy, you should suck that breath right back in. They aren't nice massages with tinkly music and aromatherapy. They're sports massages with the sortof odd masseur* who treats nearly everyone at the gym. They hurt.
Holy cow, they hurt so much. The whole session averages about a six or a seven, on a one-to-ten for pain. That spikes up to an eight or nine when he finds a knot. Christ they hurt. He's been working on my hip flexors/knee, so he feels along my quads, probing the muscle. There comes the instant where the pressure feels different, with a sharper pain I've come to recognize. I always stifle my flinch, in hopes that he'll move on. I don't know what it feels like to him in my muscles, but he never misses one. I feel that sharp pain and then it starts. He digs in, and I gasp to keep from screaming. I try to keep still, wide shocked eyes on the ceiling. I breathe into it for as long as I can before my whole body starts jerking. He tells me that he is relaxing muscles that are permanently clenched, that he is untangling knots of muscles. I don't know how literally to take that explanation, but OK, dude. All I know is that the areas he works on hurt to the touch for four days, and I have bruises the size of my hands the next day.
After the sharpest pain, he tells me to hop off the table and do squats. I don't hop off the table so much as spring away from him. But it works. I can get lower before the hip flexor squawks. My knee tracks better and doesn't pop so strongly. He asks me how it feels, but I don't know how to answer. 'Well, I'd say that compared to the recent screaming pain, the original complaint doesn't bother me so much."
It is working, or I wouldn't do it. The improvements are detectable and they last. In a way, I guess it is my fifth workout of the week. I gotta say. I'm just lying there, but it is definitely the hardest.
*He chats for much of the time, making strange little comments. "I can tell that you keep well hydrated." Really? You can tell that from my muscles? He'd like to be working on horses, suggests that some of the big guys in the gym are a good intermediate step. (Apparently, one does not do deep massage on horses. I thought that was because they'd kick anyone who did to them what he does to us, but he says it is because their muscles are too thick to reach. One does energy work on horses. Reiki.) When I exclaimed about the pain, he laughed. "Tomorrow it'll feel like you got hit by a truck, hah hah!" Hah hah? It HURTS! It is definitely not a session designed for my floaty relaxation.