Ease the aches, pains and get moving with massage therapy - Richmond News

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Now is an excellent time to get your body ready to be active.

With the better weather coming, and public health restrictions easing for outdoor activities, the staff at Sense Massage Therapy in Blundell Centre are there to help work out the aches and pains you may have developed during the winter and lengthy COVID-19 lockdowns and restrictions.

“With a team of registered massage therapists working under strict public health protocols, clients can feel confident about their visit,” says Edward Chang, a registered massage therapist at the clinic, which is located between Shopper’s Drug Mart and Kin’s Farm Market.

“We follow all the current guidelines like mask-wearing and sanitizing our hands. But some of the cleaning protocols are things we were already doing before COVID, so it wasn’t so big a change,” Chang says.

What did change was the impact the pandemic initially had on client traffic, as visits were down last spring by around 80 per cent.

“It was slow because people were unsure if it was safe to be in such close contact with another person, especially in an industry like massage therapy where it’s not possible to maintain social distancing during treatment,” Chang says.

But by last September, business was back to almost normal as customers had become familiar with COVID protocols.

Many of the clients who continued their treatments as usual through the early days of the pandemic were nurses who relied on massage therapy sessions to get them back to providing front-line care.

“Roughly a third of our clients are care workers who have stress and physically-related conditions,” Chang says.

Chang says some clients are catching up on their treatments to get them back on track as things go back to normal.

And from a public health perspective, better days are on the horizon.

“With the vaccines and what the numbers are showing, in terms of cases, I think we are approaching better times, although we should all maintain standards like hand-washing and mask-wearing,” Chan says.

“And now is a good time to get a massage and take care of your body, so when you want to get out there and, perhaps, go for a hike, you are free of any aches and pains that might have discouraged you.”

For more information on how massage therapy can benefit you, visit Sense Massage Therapy at sensemassage.ca.