Healing Hands
The Spa’s professional wellness therapists offer treatments for a range of ailments, from recurring sports injuries to stress-induced aches.
The restorative powers of massage have been understood for centuries. Different forms of hands-on therapy have appeared in cave drawings, texts and paintings of ancient civilizations in Egypt and China as early as 2700 BC. Massage now features in cultures across the globe.
Today, massage-based wellness therapies are used for boosting both body and mind, and they are increasingly viewed as a total-body therapy, rather than solely an aesthetic treatment.
In a survey by the American Massage Therapy Association, almost half of adults who received massages between 2009 and 2010 did so for stress reduction. Twenty-nine percent did so for medical reasons. This had risen to 43 percent by 2017.
A growing body of research explains the shift. Deep-tissue treatments have been shown to relieve pain, as well as improve circulation, mobility, posture, sleep, mental outlook and immune system function.
At the Club, The Spa offers an array of wellness therapies, from osteopathy to sports aromatherapy, administered by experts in their respective fields.
Osteopathy
For squash-loving Member Jonathan Siegel, 41, Koichi Uesaka’s osteopathy treatment was “a lifeline at a time of need.”
Despite having played the sport injury-free for years, Siegel suffered a muscle spasm in his back during a game and keeled over on the court.
“I went from dancing around the court to being unable to stand,” he says. A Member suggested he visit Uesaka and, after daily sessions, Siegel was back with a racket in his hand in one week.
“The change in me was remarkable,” he explains. “Koichi found the root of the issue in meticulous fashion, without any further damage or pain, thanks to his incredibly strong grasp of physiology.”
As the treatment focused on releasing tension in precise locations, Siegel says pain relief came quickly and he learned about the problematic body parts that needed to be relaxed.
This focus on local pain, followed by regional pain and then other stresses is key to osteopathy, according to Uesaka, a specialist in pain relief, posture correction and joint alignment.
Around half his patients report pain from injury, overuse or incorrect movement habits that the body has normalized. When muscles are under constant pressure, they become tight and inhibit blood circulation. This leads to an insufficient flow of nutrients and a buildup of waste products, preventing the body from healing itself.
“I try to find what is restricting the functioning of the body’s self-healing system and remove it. The treatment is about reprogramming the brain, so it thinks that the muscle in its released state—not its contracted state—is normal,” explains Uesaka, who also works as a trainer at the Fitness Center.
Since our bodies are creatures of habit, one osteopathy session will not solve chronic pain, he stresses. But when he can pinpoint the issue and prescribe a change in behavior, speedy recovery is possible.
Sports Aromatherapy
After suffering upper-body strain for more than six months after a heavy training regimen of weightlifting and martial arts, Member Razin Ashraf was eager for a solution. Repeated grappling during Brazilian jiujitsu left him with pain in his upper back, shoulders, neck and arms.
An INTOUCH article about Club sports aromatherapist Hideaki Hongo caught his attention and he booked a treatment.
“I was really surprised,” said Ashraf, 39. “Other spa treatments I’ve had made me relaxed or refreshed but this was different—I got instant relief from the tightness.”
Certified massage therapist and aromatherapist Hongo begins each session by assessing the Member’s physical condition before choosing suitable oils, many of which are used solely in sports aromatherapy.
For example, he uses peppermint or winter green oils to cool recent injuries and strains, rosemary and lemongrass to release lactic acid and stimulate circulation for tightness, and cardamom and black pepper to warm and soften muscles.
“I wake up the muscles, pressing and stretching to elongate them and to increase space between bone and bone, so the joint can move,” he explains.
Rather than focus on individual muscles, Hongo works on the entire body. In Ashraf’s case, he treated his core and upper-leg muscles to release tension before moving on to his upper body.
“Every time I go to a session, I can see the effect almost immediately,” says Ashraf. “I feel like my neck is stretched and I feel taller. That stretching and improvement to my posture is really helpful.”
Ashraf trains up to three times a week and aims to visit Hongo monthly. As a certified personal trainer, Hongo understands Ashraf’s workout craving. He helps many of his clients both in the Fitness Center and The Spa.
“Through treatment,” he says, “they can rejuvenate their body after sport.”
Physiotherapy
A regular in Ironman triathlons and other endurance sports, Member Alessandro Agnini, 39, was accustomed to injury. But he became frustrated with doctors’ predictable advice of pain relief and rest.
A year ago, after an exacerbated foot injury left him unable to do any sport for a month and a half, Agnini sought the advice of Tokyo-based physiotherapist Joseph Padilla, who joined The Spa last month.
Padilla uses manual therapy to treat acute pain and improve joint mobility and muscle length and activization.
“Hands-on treatment allows [clients] to see what their body feels like when it’s working correctly,” says Padilla, who teaches clients exercises to boost mobility. “Together, we explore the exercises, so I can stop them before they injure themselves. I empower them to take control of their condition,” he says.
“The biggest value is not pain relief—there are a lot of places where that is possible—but in the explanation of the problem, of why the injury is happening,” Agnini says of Padilla’s treatment.
As Padilla works on the root cause of the injury through manual therapy and education, he is able to treat pain, repair tissue damage, reduce inflammation and boost function.
Agnini has suffered fewer injuries since visiting Padilla. When a symptom does flare up, he has been able to return to training within a couple of days, and he has never had to return to Padilla with the same complaint. This year, he has targeted eight races, rather than his usual four or five.
“To be able to train for one year without interruption [from injury] is priceless,” he says. “I am now in peak condition.”
Therapeutic Treatment
Executive, mother and marathoner Melodie Nakhle, 43, has been treated by The Spa’s Wakako Ogawa for the past four years.
Leading a stressful, travel-packed, executive lifestyle, Nakhle suffered from upper-back strain and tension in the shoulders. On top of that, long-distance running left her with trouble in the hips and lower body. After having her son five years ago, Nakhle had less time to work out, a regular pastime that once relieved stress while keeping her mobile.
“The joke was that my shoulders love my ears,” she says. “It was affecting my posture and causing headaches.”
In Nakhle’s first visits to Ogawa, the New York State-licensed massage therapist began each session by asking Nakhle where she felt tension or stress. She then set about alleviating the pain and working on her muscle imbalance, a treatment complemented by sessions with a trainer in the Fitness Center.
“Massage can’t restore strength,” explains Ogawa. “I work with the personal trainer to correct Members’ habitual movement and faulty mechanics that can cause tissue overload or muscles on one side to become dominant, for example.”
“After a few months, I could feel the difference from the therapy and training sessions,” says Nakhle. “Due to conditioning and improved posture, I have less chronic pain caused by [muscle] overuse and overexercise.”
Keenly aware of how her work and lifestyle can affect her body condition, Nakhle does regular exercises to improve her body alignment. And sessions with a trainer have strengthened her core, meaning fewer appointments with Ogawa.
Visit The Spa to learn more about its wellness therapies.
Words: Kathryn Wortley
Image: Enrique Balducci
