Slow, sustained pressure reaches the deep muscle layers where chronic pain and tension actually sit. Our registered massage therapists on St. Albert Trail in north Edmonton aim for relief that lasts past the drive home.
$115.50 / 60 Minutes (+GST)
The problem
You have stretched it, iced it and slept on it wrong for months. The knot is still there because surface work never reaches the layer holding it.
It usually starts as a stiff neck or a tight lower back after a run of long days at a desk, and you keep working around it until the day you can’t. By then the pain is shaping how you sit and sleep, and everyday function has started to shrink around it. Stress from the rest of the week settles into the same muscles, so the knot tightens whenever work does.
Several of our clients arrived having already paid for deep tissue somewhere else and felt an hour of pressure that never reached the spot. After two or three of those, hesitating is reasonable, because by then the real doubt is whether anyone will find the problem at all.
Deep tissue massage uses slow, sustained pressure to reach the deeper layers of muscle and the connective tissue around them, rather than working the surface. Registered massage therapists at Got Knots in Edmonton work this way in 30, 60 or 90 minute sessions, and they set the pressure to what your tissue will take that day.
Slow strokes give the deeper layers time to release instead of bracing against the work, which is how adhesions between layers of tissue start to let go. It’s also why a deep tissue hour covers less ground than a relaxation hour.
Your therapist checks what has changed since your last visit and adjusts pressure and focus. A flare-up week and a maintenance week don’t get the same treatment.
Where a single point is holding, your therapist uses trigger point therapy inside the session rather than booking it as a separate appointment.
The work targets shortened tissue and old scar tissue around a joint. What that buys is ordinary range of motion and flexibility, the kind you need to turn your head or reach a high shelf without thinking about it.
Repeated loading shortens tissue in the same few places, and the benefit of regular deep tissue work is that it keeps going back to them. The pressure also gets circulation moving through muscle that has been held tight for days.
You leave with stretches and posture changes for the days in between, handed over without being asked for them. The hour helps most when the other 167 in the week aren’t undoing it.
Deep tissue massage is best for pain and tightness that have settled in rather than flared up yesterday, like chronic low back pain, a neck and shoulders stiffened by desk work, and old sports injuries where scar tissue now limits how a joint moves. These are the conditions we see it help most often.
For chronic low back pain there is trial evidence behind it, with pain and function improving for up to six months. The same trial found gentler Swedish massage did about as well, so if deep pressure isn’t for you, you haven’t run out of options.
Deep tissue massage works on tension and knots wherever they've built up, with slow pressure into the deeper layers. Sports massage at Got Knots starts from whatever your sport or activity has loaded, and mixes that pressure with stretching, joint mobilization and trigger point work.
| Deep Tissue Massage | Sports massage | |
|---|---|---|
| Starts from | Where tension has built up, wherever that is | What your sport or activity has loaded |
| Best for | Chronic pain, desk-work tension, knots that keep returning | Weekend-warrior soreness, training load, getting back after an injury |
| Pressure | Slow and sustained, in the 4 to 6 range on a 10-point scale, never past 7 | Varies with the goal, from lighter flushing strokes to deep work |
| Techniques | Sustained strokes, friction, trigger point work inside the session | Pressure plus assisted stretching, joint mobilization and trigger point therapy |
| After an injury | Works old scar tissue and adhesions once the injury has healed | Works around a fresh injury or directly on it, depending on how new it is |
| When to book | On a regular schedule, any week | Around training, after an event, or when something hurts that hasn't in years |
If you aren’t training for anything, book deep tissue. If the pain started on a bike, a rink or a ball field, either one will help, and the sports massage page explains how that session is built.
Most people book deep tissue massage therapy because one muscle hurts, and it’s reasonable to assume the work happens only in that muscle, one knot at a time. But a good part of what changes on the table happens in your nervous system. Sustained, moderate pressure registers in receptors under the skin, and the body answers by easing off its stress response, with lower cortisol among the changes linked to pain relief.
That’s why a session can leave you calmer as well as looser, even when the only thing you booked it for was a shoulder that won’t turn.
The benefits of deep tissue work also add up over several visits.
For chronic neck pain, the research on massage for chronic pain shows moderate improvement in the short term, and a first appointment is best treated as the starting point, with the second one as the first real test of whether the plan is working.
You can speed that up by being specific.
“My back hurts” gives your therapist a region to search, while “it catches when I reach into the back seat” gives them a movement to test, and the whole hour gets built around that movement instead of around a guess.
It also helps to say what you’ve already tried.
Stretching every morning, a foam roller in front of the TV, a heat pack every night for a month, the exercises you stopped doing in week two: each one tells your therapist something about what the tissue will and won’t answer to, and none of it is wasted information, even the things that didn’t work.
We won’t call ourselves the best deep tissue massage in Edmonton, because that verdict isn’t ours to give.
Your own verdict is the one that counts.
Book an hour, and judge the work by how you move on Thursday rather than by how the table felt on Tuesday. Then you decide whether we’re the best.
Thirty, sixty and ninety minutes all book online, and you can pick a therapist by name or select all of them to see every opening the clinic has that week.
Pressure and focus start from what you tell us rather than a routine, and your therapist says what they are finding while they work. You hear it as it happens.
Before you leave, we can put your next appointment on the calendar, and our own booking page will tell you the current week may already be full.
Come a few minutes early your first time, because there is a short health history to fill out, and filling it in the waiting room spends the hour you booked on paperwork instead of treatment on the table.
You know what the hour will involve, what it costs, and when you are coming back.
What an amazing massage. I have been to many many “deep tissue” massages and this was by far the best. Great location, great office and great staff. Cannot wait to go back :-)
Amazing and professional service. Very relaxing environment. Unbelievable deep tissue techniques.
they are all great
I felt significantly better the next day
I always feel so relaxed and pain free
the best I’ve had yet
simple to setup the direct billing
Felt ten years younger
found muscles I didn’t even know existed
The best at what she does
By far the best
Clinic-wide membership with the Natural Health Practitioners of Canada means the receipt you hand your insurer is the same document whichever therapist you book, and the hour you get is held to the same standard.
It is a discount you buy once and spend as the sessions come, instead of a monthly fee you have to remember to cancel.
Eleven years with no lapse and no downgrade, on a rating anyone can check.
Most people book 60 minutes, which is $115.50 plus GST. Thirty minutes covers one area you can point to, and ninety gives your therapist room to work more than one without rushing the part that actually changes how you move. If you are not sure, book the hour and decide from there.
| Session | Price |
|---|---|
| 30 minutes | $73.50 |
| 60 minutes | $115.50 |
| 90 minutes | $157.50 |
We bill your extended health provider directly, so you only pay the part your plan doesn't cover, and the card we keep on file isn't charged until your insurer has paid its share. We can bill your primary plan only. If your plan needs a doctor's referral for massage, send it to your benefit provider before your appointment, not to us.
Alberta Blue Cross – Sun Life – Canada Life – Telus Health (Manulife, Canada Life + 20 more) – Medavie (incl. Veterans Affairs & RCMP) – Green Shield
You should not have to explain your pain twice, or leave a session wondering whether anything actually changed.
Nadine Munro has been a Registered Massage Therapist since 2000 and founded Got Knots in 2009. Every therapist on our team is an RMT with at least 2,200 hours of training, and together we've treated more than 4,300 clients since the clinic opened.
FocusDeep tissue, cupping and children's massage
FocusHeadaches, migraines and TMJ pain
It should feel uncomfortable, but never unbearable. On a scale where 1 is nothing and 10 is more than you can stand, we work in the 4 to 6 range and nobody here goes past a 7, so tell your therapist the moment the pressure crosses that line. The complaint in our own reviews runs the other way, from people whose last massage was too light to reach anything.
Soreness for a day or two is normal, because pressure that reaches the deeper layers leaves muscle feeling much the way it does after a hard workout. If it’s sharp rather than dull, or it’s still there on the third day, tell your therapist before the next appointment rather than after it. That changes what happens on the table.
Anyone with a blood clot, anyone recovering from surgery, and anyone who is pregnant should skip deep tissue as it’s usually done. If you’re pregnant, book prenatal massage instead, where positioning and pressure are adjusted for you, and if you have any other medical condition, check with your doctor before you book.
Don’t plan a hard workout or anything strenuous for the rest of the day, because the muscles you just had worked on need time before they’re loaded again. Drink water and keep the evening easy, and if your therapist gave you stretches, this is the night to start them.
A regular massage uses lighter, flowing strokes across the whole body, while deep tissue slows down and presses into the deeper layers where chronic tension sits. If you want an all-over reset with moderate pressure, therapeutic massage is the closer fit, and if one area keeps hurting, book deep tissue.
For a long-standing problem, sessions usually start closer together and stretch further apart as the tissue holds its ground for longer between appointments. Your therapist will tell you what they think once they’ve felt what’s going on. Before you leave, we can put the next one on the calendar while we both know what it’s for, which is how it stops being something you only book when it hurts.
Visit us
Find us at 13220 St Albert Trail NW #104 — right on the commute between downtown Edmonton and St. Albert. Open Monday through Saturday, with direct billing to most major benefit plans.
Serving north Edmonton and the St. Albert corridor
