Sports massage in Edmonton for the body you ask a lot of
In north Edmonton, we work with athletes and active people carrying a hard season or an old injury. Tell us what you train for, and we'll aim for relief where it hurts.
A body that sits at a desk all week and then plays a full game of hockey on Sunday usually lets you know about it by Tuesday, in muscles you had forgotten you owned.
The weekend warrior
You spend forty hours a week in a chair, then ski for the first time in years, join a gym or sign up for a soccer league, and your hips, calves or shoulders are sore in a way they haven’t been in a decade. Usually nothing is injured. It’s sports-related muscle soreness from asking an unprepared body for an intense effort, and most of the sports massage we do is for exactly this.
The training block
Months of running or cycling repeat the same movement thousands of times a week, and the tension builds in the calves, hips and low back even when nothing is technically hurt. Clients in a block like this book for maintenance (keeping tightness from turning into the thing that stops training) as much as for pain.
Sports massage is massage therapy aimed at the muscles your sport or training works hardest, to ease soreness, work through tension and keep you moving well between sessions. Your registered massage therapist draws on several massage techniques (deep pressure, long strokes, stretching and compression) and chooses among them for what your body is dealing with that week.
Soreness after a hard effort
Muscles still sore from a big game or a long weekend get lighter pressure and longer strokes, aimed at circulation and blood flow through the area rather than more load on tired tissue.
Tension from repetition
Slower, deeper work goes into the muscles that repeat the same motion all week, the calves and hips of a runner or the shoulders of a swimmer, where tightness starts to cost range of motion and flexibility.
Performance and recovery
Clients who book regularly tell us they recover more easily between sessions and feel less restricted when they train, and many of them treat it as part of their recovery.
Injury prevention
Your therapist points out tight or uneven areas worth watching before they turn into a strain, and for many clients the appointment becomes one part of an injury prevention routine, alongside sensible training and rest.
What can sports massage help with?
Sports massage is aimed at the sports injuries and overuse problems clients book for most. Your therapist asks what happened and how long ago, then decides whether to work on the injured area itself or on the muscles that have been compensating for it.
A fresh injury, especially one with swelling, bruising or a joint that won’t take your weight, needs a physician or physiotherapist first. Massage comes in once it has been assessed.
Sports massage therapy for Edmonton athletes
Whether or not you’d call yourself athletic, the people who book sports massage want what everyone else wants, which is muscles that stop complaining about the work they’re asked to do.
Who books it
Nadine has worked as a sports massage therapist in Edmonton for more than 20 years, and the same few patterns keep turning up on the table.
runners, with tight calves, sore shins and an IT band that won’t settle
cyclists, with hips, quads and a low back that have spent hours folded over the bars
hockey and soccer players, with groin, hip and hamstring strains
swimmers and golfers, with shoulders and a back that turn the same way every time
What they share is a body asked to repeat something until part of it objects. But the sport is a clue rather than an answer, and your therapist still checks what’s tight on the table before deciding where to spend the hour.
Before and after a game or an event
The massage techniques change with the timing. Before an event the session is shorter and lighter, meant to leave you loose rather than tender, and after one it starts gentle and goes deeper as the soreness settles over the following days. During a long stretch of training it becomes regular maintenance on the muscles doing the most work, the ones a training plan loads week after week with little said about how they’re supposed to recover in between. Our guide to sports massage techniques covers each in more detail.
Sports injury massage after it has healed
With a healed injury, the work usually goes two ways. The injured area gets attention to the scar tissue and stiffness left behind, with the aim of a strong, flexible scar and full movement through the joint. The muscles that compensated while it healed (the other hip, the opposite shoulder, the low back that took up the slack) get worked too.
Pain relief often comes from those compensating muscles as much as from the injury itself. Your therapist will tell you which they’re working on and why.
What happens when you book sports 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 sports massage at Got Knots
4.9
235 Google reviews
5
37 Facebook reviews
Nadine has taken care of my massage therapy for over a decade. She helped me through my two pregnancies and continues to help me through pains from an office job and running. I trust Nadine. She is kind and professional,…
Alanna YoungGoogle review
All of the staff at got knots are highly skilled at what they do, they are consistent, friendly and exceptionally thorough with any treatments. We have referred them often, as they are a valuable service for anyone that leads…
Shawn BrostGoogle review
going to this company for over 10 years
the therapy I receive here is second to none
Most importantly they listen to my massage needs
Never leave disappointed
The best at what she does
Experts at finding knots
I haven't seen anyone else since
I trust Nadine
Felt ten years younger
Why choose Got Knots for sports 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 sports massage cost?
Most people book 60 minutes, which is $115.50 plus GST. Thirty minutes suits one area after a game or a hard week, while an hour gives your therapist time for the muscles compensating around the problem as well as the problem itself. If you play more than one sport or carry an old injury, ninety minutes leaves room for all of it.
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.
A sports massage is planned around what your sport or training does to your body, where a regular massage is planned around general tension. The pressure, the areas worked and the timing all follow your activity, and that fit is where the benefit comes from. If you’re choosing between sports and deep tissue, our sports vs deep tissue massage comparison sets them side by side.
For one area, such as a tight calf or a sore shoulder after a game, thirty minutes is usually enough. If more than one area needs work, or you’re working around an old injury, book the hour, because your therapist needs time for the muscles around the problem as well as the problem itself.
Often, yes, because sports massage works through the tight spots your training creates. For a knot that keeps coming back, trigger point therapy holds steady pressure on the point itself until it releases, and your therapist will use it inside a sports massage when it helps.
Book a lighter session a few days before an event and a deeper one two or three days after, once the worst of the soreness has passed. Between events, a session every few weeks keeps on top of the tension (your therapist will adjust that to how hard you’re training). Our guide to sports massage techniques explains what each kind of session involves.
Yes, once it has been assessed. A fresh injury with swelling, bruising or a joint that won’t take your weight needs a physician or physiotherapist first, and after that your therapist works on the scar tissue, stiffness and compensating muscles as it heals.
No. Most of our sports clients are active people rather than competitive athletes, from Sunday hockey players to people three weeks into a new gym routine, and if an activity is what’s making you sore, a sports massage is built for it.
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.
A knot can send pain well away from where it sits. Each one is found by touch and held until it releases, so the spot and the ache it causes both ease.
When tension hasn't shifted with regular massage, silicone cups lift the tissue instead of pressing into it. Book it on its own or add it to a longer session.
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
