Hot stone massage in Edmonton, for muscles that need warming up first
Hot stone massage is massage with heat built in. Your therapist on St. Albert Trail in north Edmonton rests heated stones on tight muscles and works through them. It's soothing, and it's still treatment.
By February in north Edmonton, it lives in your shoulders and the small of your back. You hunch against the wind, you sit a little tighter at your desk, and the tight muscles never quite let go. A hot shower helps for ten minutes. Then it's back.
Wanting to relax and needing relief
Some weeks you want a massage that fixes something. Other weeks you want an hour where nothing is asked of you. One longtime client wrote that whether they came in for back pain, sore muscles or simply to relax, they walked away with both, pain relief and calm. Hot stone massage is for the week you want both.
Wondering if the stones will be too hot
They shouldn’t be. The stones warm in a dry heat bag to a set temperature, and your therapist asks how the heat feels before one settles on you. Too warm? It comes off, or a layer of sheet goes between you. Nobody expects you to grit your teeth through it.
Hot stone massage is massage therapy that uses smooth, heated basalt stones. Your therapist rests warm stones on your back, hands or legs and holds others as an extension of their hands. The warmth helps tight muscles relax, so the massage can go deeper with less pressure. You’re massaged the whole time.
Basalt, warmed first
We use basalt, a volcanic stone that holds heat well and gives it up slowly.
Worked, as well as placed
Our massage therapists use long Swedish strokes with a stone in each hand, and direct pressure into knots, the way they would in trigger point therapy.
What can hot stone massage help with?
Hot stone massage is good for tension that has settled in and stays: tight muscles, a stiff back, or the chill that gets into your hands and feet over an Edmonton winter. It also suits anyone who wants real relief but finds firm pressure hard to take.
Each linked page carries the research for that condition.
Benefits of hot stone massage
Heat changes how a massage feels.
A muscle that braces against firm pressure will often soften under warmth instead. Hot stone tends to suit:
anyone who carries tension in their back and shoulders and wants it gone without bracing through the hour
people who find deep pressure too much but still want more than a light massage
people who are cold right through by February and want the warmth as much as the work
What happens in a hot stone session
Your therapist asks about your health history and where you’re holding tension, while the stones warm. Then you lie face down.
The stones rest on you and move with your therapist’s hands, and they never replace those hands.
Treatment, with warmth added
The session is built around your problem areas. The heat does some of the loosening, so an hour can go further, into the back that has ached all week or the shoulders you’ve been holding up near your ears.
Tell your therapist what brought you in, whether it’s a back that stiffened on the drive over or shoulders that have carried a week of deadlines, and the stones and the pressure go there first. The rest of you gets the warmth anyway.
What happens when you book a hot stone massage
Book the time you want
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.
Tell your therapist what has changed
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.
Book the next one before you leave
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 clients say about hot stone massage at Got Knots
4.9
235 Google reviews
5
37 Facebook reviews
I followed Brittany from one clinic to this one and it was such a good decision. She's awesome! I always feel so relaxed and pain free after I leave.
Vanessa HennesseyGoogle review
Just saw Brittany for the first time today and had a wonderful experience. Her pressure was perfect for me and she hit all the spots I requested. I look forward to returning.
Tao PingGoogle review
I felt significantly better the next day
By far the best
The best at what she does
Super easy direct billing
My pain is gone
Wouldn't go anywhere else
Most importantly they listen to my massage needs
the best that I have ever had
I always feel so relaxed and pain free
Why choose Got Knots for hot stone massage
Every therapist here is registered
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.
Ten percent off six sessions, fifteen off twelve
It is a discount you buy once and spend as the sessions come, instead of a monthly fee you have to remember to cancel.
A+ with the Better Business Bureau since 2015
Eleven years with no lapse and no downgrade, on a rating anyone can check.
What does hot stone massage cost?
Most people book 60 minutes, which is $115.50 plus GST. An hour gives the stones time to warm your back and shoulders and your therapist time to work through them. Ninety minutes lets the heat reach your arms, hands and legs as well. Hot stone costs the same as any other massage.
All rates shown before GST
Session
Price
30 minutes
$73.50
60 minutes
$115.50
90 minutes
$157.50
Direct billing to 30+ insurance plans
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
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.
No, it shouldn’t. The stones are warm rather than hot, and your therapist checks how the heat feels before a stone rests on you. Pressure works the same way. Tell your therapist, and they’ll ease off.
If warmth helps you relax, usually yes. Many people find their muscles let go sooner under heat, so the hour reaches further than it would with hands alone. It costs the same as any other massage here, so it comes down to whether you like the heat.
Undress to the level you’re comfortable with. You’re covered by a sheet the whole time, and only the area being worked on is uncovered. Stones can rest on bare skin or over the sheet, whichever you prefer.
Book 60 or 90 minutes. Hot stone is its own appointment, so the whole session is built around the stones, and 90 minutes leaves time for your arms and legs as well as your back and shoulders.
Hot stone massage uses heat to loosen tight muscles, and deep tissue massage uses slow, firm pressure. Both reach the deeper layers. If you like firm pressure, deep tissue massage is the better fit. If firm pressure makes you tense up, the warmth of hot stone often gets further.
Tell your therapist before you book if you have circulation problems, diabetes, sensitivity to heat or a skin condition, so they can decide whether heat suits you. If you’re pregnant, read about prenatal massage and ask us before you book.
Drink water and keep the rest of the day easy. Your muscles have been warmed and worked, so leave the hard workout for another day and give them a night to settle.
Pain that sits deep tends to come back. Slow, sustained work reaches the muscle layers a lighter massage never gets to, with the depth set to what your body will take that day.
One problem and a clear goal. Instead of a full-body routine, the hour stays on the area that's bothering you and whatever is pulling on it, toward a change you'll notice the next time you reach or turn.
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
