How often should you get a remedial massage?

“How often should I come in?” is the question we are asked at the end of almost every first appointment, and the honest answer is that it depends on what we found and what you want from treatment. These are the patterns we use to set a frequency, and how it changes over time.

When something hurts now

For an acute problem, a strained back, a neck that locked up on Monday, a hamstring that is holding you back from running, we usually suggest weekly sessions for two to four weeks. Tight muscles and irritated joints respond best to treatment before they have fully tightened up again, and the first few weeks are also when your exercise program is being set up and adjusted. Most people feel a clear difference after the first session and a lasting change by the third or fourth.

During a training block

If you are building for an event, in pre-season, or lifting heavily, remedial massage every one to two weeks helps the muscles recover between sessions and catches tightness before it becomes an injury. Timing matters: book two to three days before a race or competition rather than the day before, so the muscles have time to settle.

Maintenance

Once the original problem has settled, the goal changes from fixing to preventing. For most office workers that means a session every three to five weeks, timed around the things that load you: a long stretch of travel, a project deadline, the first weeks of a new gym program. People who train hard or have a long history of the same problem often choose fortnightly. Your practitioner will suggest a gap based on how long the benefit of each session is lasting, and you can adjust from there.

Signs you are leaving it too long

• The same ache returns before your next visit, every time.
• Each session is spent catching up rather than progressing.
• You have stopped doing the exercises because things “feel fine”, then the problem flares.

Signs you can stretch it out

• You are consistently pain-free between visits.
• Your exercises are now a habit and you can feel when you have skipped them.
• Sessions are finding less to treat each time.

The frequency is never fixed. Tell your practitioner how you have felt between visits and the plan moves with you. If you are wondering how many sessions the initial phase will take, we have written about that separately in how many remedial massage sessions do I need.