Today I had my first sports massage in umpteen years, so I knew what to expect.
Jim has a fantastic reputation for sorting out knotted muscles. He's the kind of sports massage therapist who can crunch household bricks into dust with his fingers, while laughing . . . ideal for the job then!
After half an hour of uttering every word under the swear-word rainbow, feeling a little nauseous and finishing in a sweat-drenched T-shirt (me, not Jim) Jim's assessment was that my calf muscles contain multiple severe knots . . . as do my hamstrings . . . and my iliotibial band (the hard vertical band of muscle running along the outside of the legs) and my glutes. We didn't get to my quads, so that's for another day.
So it seems likely all these tight muscles (as my wife very often says: "You never stretch off your runs!") must in some way be pulling on my Achilles: the lateral sides of my calf muscles are extremely tight, so that seems to make sense.
I'm booked in for twice a week for the next three months: there's some serious work to do!
