The importance of reviews cannot be underestimated. For massage therapists in Brighton this has recently been brought into focus by one unscrupulous massage centre leaving fake negative reviews on many of its competitors listings on Google Places. At the same time not surprisingly they left several positive reviews for their own business.

Review sites such as Google Places, Qype and Trip Advisor are now often the first place people go when wanting to buy a product or find a service. Readers do however need to make judgements as to whether reviews are genuine or not and whether the reviewer if genuine is likely to have the same values, standards and expectations as yourself (lets face it – there is no pleasing some people!) . Trip Advisor is a great example of this having recently come under criticism for claiming to be a site where the reviews can be trusted but without a foolproof way to ensure the reviews are genuine.

With this in mind we can broadly class reviews into 3 categories – the good, the bad and the ugly!

The good review will drive more business to you, get you noticed by Google and reaffirm where you are doing things right.

A bad review is gutting BUT can be a wake up call and make you reflect on your practice. In the world of massage you really are only as good as your last massage.

Then there is the ugly review – posted by your competitor to try and discredit you. This is the worst sort of review, in that it tells you nothing to improve your business, shows how malicious and insecure the business posting the review is and, of course, can have a serious detrimental effect on your business.

Review sites are coming under increasing pressure to find ways to establish whether reviews are genuine, and rightly so. It would be a great shame for this great resource to be polluted by so many fake reviews that it ceases to be of any value anymore.

If you are looking for a massage centre in Brighton the reviews on Google places is still a great place to start. You can spot the fakes both good and bad fairly easily. Click on the reviewer and see if they’ve left lots of bad reviews for other similar business in the area (a sure sign this is an ‘ugly’ reviewer) and then a few glowing reviews for themselves. Integrity will always win the day (lets hope)!

Mark Alexander is the owner of Natural Balance Therapies in Hove,  a remedial massage therapist, part time lecturer in Business Studies and occasional Blogger…(when he feels inclined:))

Firstly, the heat from the Basalt stones relaxes the muscles causing the blood vessels to expand, followed by the use of cold stones on an injury area causing the blood vessels to constrict. The heat ensures a good flow of blood, nutrients and oxygen to the injury area and the cold flushes away any waste materials and relieves internal bleeding from the site of the injury.

This flushing mechanism is excellent for treating all types of injuries and anywhere there is congestion in the body such as neck, shoulders and arms. It’s fantastic for treating Repetitive Strain injury, whiplash and frozen shoulder to name a few.

Stone therapy is a deep treatment that promotes detoxification in the body by flushing toxins through the lymph glands.

Not only that! … It feels so relaxing, your mind switches off and all stress goes away! Well – at least for the time of your massage anyway! Hot and Cold Stone Therapy, also called Geo-Thermo Therapy, is available with Angela at Natural Balance Therapies. Book as a Hot Stone Massage and add the comment ‘Add cold stones’.

Massage for runners

Local Events this Spring

Feb 19th Brighton Half-Marathon
Mar 4th Steyning Stinger Marathon and Half
Mar 4th Eastbourne Half Marathon
Mar 18th Worthing 20
Mar 25th Hastings Half-Marathon
Apr 1st Sussex Marathon & Half Marathon
Apr 15th Brighton Marathon
Apr 15th Hartfield Fun Run 10k, 5.6k and 2k
Apr 22nd London Marathon
Apr 28th Crawley A.I.M Charity 6 & 12 hour track race
May 5th East Grinstead 10 Miles
May 6th Haywards Heath 10 Miles
May 6th Three Forts Marathon
May 7th Burgess Hill 10k

Click here to book your Sports Massage online with Natural Balance Therapies, 30 The Drive in Hove. 

Running has grown in popularity recently with people of all ages and levels of ability taking up the challenge. From Brighton Marathon, Half Marathons (like the Beacon Half Marathon) through to charity runs like the Race for Life, event running is more popular than ever.  There are lots of sites on the web with advice and training programs to help you reach your desired goal but many runners will start to experience problems along the way.

For muscular aches and pains Sports Massage can play an important role in both injury prevention and helping with problems as they occur. Natural Balance Therapies is Brighton and Hove’s number one centre for therapeutic massage with a team of talented professionals to help you achieve your goals.

Specifically we can help with common running aches & pains such as:

• Pulled or tight hamstrings
• IT (Iliotibial) Band syndrome
• Shin splints
• Hip pain / Buttock pain such as Piriformis Syndrome
• Groin pain
• Foot pain such as Plantar Fasciitis
• Knee pain (where muscular in origin)

Sports massage takes different forms depending on the outcome required:

Rehab Work

This focuses on speeding up recovery following injury or long term muscular problems. It is great for treating muscle spasm/strain.

Pre-Event / Pre-Exercise Work

This focuses on getting people ready for physical activity. The main objectives are optimising performance and injury prevention.

Post-Event / Post-Exercise Work

This focuses on speeding up recovery time following physical activity, essential if you are serious about your sport or gym work.

Click here to book your Sports Massage online with Natural Balance Therapies, 30 The Drive in Hove.

With 39 days till Christmas, for most of us the thought of doing any Christmas shopping seems rather premature. Of course there are those uber organised people who do their Christmas shopping in the January sales and some how manage, 12 months later, to find all the things they squirrelled away… I wish I could be that organised!
This year, more than ever, the importance of not ‘wasting’ money will be apparent. A combination of economic gloom and a growing environmental conscience means the days of the credit fueled Christmas buying frenzy are gone. Today’s Christmas shopper is calmer, more organised and definitely more discerning. They are also more likely to shop online…  a massive 10% of all retail sales are now online in the UK.

In the past I always thought of gift vouchers as the gift of last resort – if you can’t think what to get it was the safe option. Now for many the reverse is true with gift vouchers being the first choice.

“The UK’s gift card and voucher market is currently in good health, having experienced its highest ever year-on-year increase in sales according to the UK Gift Card & Voucher Association (UKGCVA). Overall, the market has seen a growth of 15.6 percent in gift card and voucher sales in Q1 of 2011 compared with the same period in 2010.”

Massage gift vouchers like any ‘experience gift’ are very different to your generic store gift voucher. A voucher for Boots or WHSmith says.. ‘here’s some cash…. go spend!’ Giving a massage gift voucher is different in that it says so much more than this.

A large percentage of our gift vouchers are bought by existing clients so the voucher says ..”I had an amazing massage with…xxx and I think you would benefit from seeing them too!” When not bought by an existing client the purchase of a massage gift voucher often says “you deserve some pampering or ‘me’ time.

My favourite scenario is where the voucher is given to someone who has never had a massage before and would never in a million years buy themselves a treatment. Not wanting to waste the voucher the client turns up and more often than not they are completely blown away by how the treatment makes them feel. With a new awareness of their body and where it feels tight or constricted they start to have regular ‘maintenance’ massage with all the associated health benefits.

If you know someone in Brighton & Hove who would benefit from one of our professional massages why not give them a gift voucher this Christmas. You can buy massage gift vouchers online and either have them posted to you first class or if you prefer receive them instantly by e-mail 24/7 for you to print out and give immediately.

Natural Balance Therapies is located on the Drive in central Brighton & Hove. We offer a range of massage treatments from clinical remedial work such as sports massage and myofascial release to luxurious pampering treatments such as hot stone massages and facials. For more details call us on Brighton 01273 771441 or visit us online at www.anaturalbalance.co.uk

The problem with heavy discounting (and often with Groupon and Living Social we are talking up to 70%) is that it creates high demand but very little revenue. This is fine if you are selling a commodity, like tins of bakes beans, as you can keep selling more until you eventually (if you’re lucky) break even and make some money…. but translate this to your massage therapist (or many other service industries) and you have an extremely busy, but frazzled therapist working extremely long hours for very little gain.

Here’s some example figures… 1 hour massage costs £45, Groupon discount is 70% means the treatment sells for £13.50. Groupon charge including VAT is 50% = £6.75. Therapist will typically pay 30 to 50% in rental charges = £4.72 …. for an hours massage!!

Not surprisingly recent research has shown that whilst running a Groupon offer will dramatically increase the number reviews left for you business – it will actually lower the ratings you get.
(Groupon’s Hidden Influence on Reputation)

Worst of all from a business perspective is that you may even be turning away ‘full price’ clients because you are so booked up. Recently I was looking at online booking systems and found a therapy centre in London that actually said on it’s website ‘fully booked for next 2 months due Groupon offer’.. great I hear you cry …BUT fully booked and making minimal profit is anything but great and this may eventually feed into the quality of the massage treatment you receive (ever had a massage from a therapist that’s fully booked and working a 10 hour day and making less then minimum wage?).

Over the past 5 years there has been a real push amongst massage therapists to be taken seriously as health professionals and this is reflected in the advanced high quality training that is now undertaken by many therapists offering clinical therapeutic massage. Quality remedial body work should not be undervalued and ultimately these discount sites are helping draw a distinction between excellent therapeutic massage and a rub down at the local Beauty Salon.

In life you generally get what you pay for! That’s not to say there is no place for promotions – just a need for perspective. Natural Balance Therapies is a centre of excellence for massage in Brighton & Hove. For the latest offers (nothing here that’s too good to be true) click here

There are times when our nutritional requirements are higher, for example on diagnosis of a specific health condition, after illness, during periods of prolonged stress, in puberty and around pregnancy.

Nutritional therapy aims to identify the underlying causes of your health concerns, providing long-term relief. Some of the areas where nutritional therapy can be of benefit are:

• Nervous system – Headaches, migraines, stress, anxiety.

• Food intolerance’s/allergies.

• Hormonal issues – PMS, menopause, PCOS, thyroid disorders.

• Skin health – Eczema, psoriasis, acne.

• Digestive problems – IBS, bloating, constipation, diarrhoea, flatulence.

• Musculo-skeletal health – Arthritis, osteoporosis, gout, fibromyalgia.

• Weight management – Blood sugar problems, food cravings, anorexia.

• Mental health – Depression, insomnia.

• Energy – Low energy, ME, chronic fatigue.

• Immunity – Frequent colds/viruses.

• Heart health – High blood pressure, high cholesterol.

• Respiratory health – Asthma, bronchitis.

• Sports nutrition.

• Maintaining a healthy diet!

There are of course many other areas where nutritional therapy can be of help, so please give me a call even if your own particular concerns are not covered in the above list.

Nutritional Therapy is now available alongside a range of therapeutic Massage treatments at Natural Balance Therapies in Brighton & Hove.

For your specific questions or more details you can also contact Sarah Kirby direct on info@sarahkirbynutrition.com

You can book online 24 hours a day.

Before entering the dissection room we were given gowns and gloves and a quick talk. Caroline, our Anatomist for the day, introduced us to the team working in the room and there was an opportunity to ask questions. We started on a serious note by being told that anyone that was disrespectful or behaved inappropriately would be asked to leave immediately. There was then a brief question and answer session.

On entering the room we could see a metal table on which were body parts and another table where a whole covered cadaver was in the initial stages of dissection. The first slightly disturbing thought that came to my mind was how you could see how, in days gone by, we would have been part of the food chain. Dead and preserved in formaldehyde we don’t look that dissimilar to other large mammals you might see at a butchers and as a meat eater this did feel uncomfortable. The second thing to strike me was the smell, or lack of it. These body parts had been out of the formaldehyde for some time and didn’t have the potent smell you hear of. The final thing to strike me was that we weren’t going to see dissection taking place but rather this was an opportunity to see and touch body parts that had been dissected already and this wasn’t as gruesome. That said there were a group of anatomy students performing a dissection on a trolley in the corner of the room and watching their painfully slow methodical progress gave some insight into the amount of careful work that was required.(note: the smell of formaldehyde in this corner of the room was far more potent and the students worked for short periods at a time taking frequent breaks).

So how did this training day help my understanding of anatomy and therefore my work as a massage therapist? Just seeing the muscles exposed in 3 dimensions helped me to better understand how applying pressure to the body effects the structures under the skin in a way that a 2 dimensional diagram struggles to do. Also anatomy books show distinct structures to aid learning whilst seeing the cadavers showed how everything is linked by fascia, the connective tissue that forms a web throughout our bodies. The relative size of different muscles was also interesting and whilst these will obviously vary according to the individual it was still fascinating e.g. Subscapularis (not easily accessible to a massage therapist) for instance was thicker and more developed than Infraspinatus (easily treated) – showing the importance of trying to access this muscle when treating the rotator cuff. Some structures were hard to identify and looked like muscle but by touching them you could feel were hard and had to be cartilage. For people with knee problems it was fascinating actually seeing the cruciate ligaments. These were tiny (compared to the diagrams in books) and you could really appreciate how once damaged could cause re-occurring problems. The Iliotibial Band on the lateral thigh is incredibly thin but strong and taught and it’s role in stabalising the knee was really evident. There was so much to take in and too much to document here but I will finish by saying if any body workers get the opportunity to attend a cadaver study …don’t hesitate.

Mark Alexander is an advanced massage therapist at Natural Balance Therapies in Brighton and Hove.
The one day Anatomy Dissection course was organised by Jing Advanced Massage and Training in conjunction with Caroline Barrow from the College of Body Science.

An understanding of anatomy is essential to clinical or remedial massage because it forms the basis for deciding a treatment plan. That’s not to say we don’t use intuition or let our hands guide us but a thorough knowledge of anatomy means that we know which muscles tend to be associated with particular ‘patterns’ of pain or postural problems. It allows us to do more precise and thorough work which in turn increases the chances of us getting a positive result for our clients.

So what’s wrong with learning from books? Nothing as a start – and I should say at this point that studying from books is the best place to start. Once you have a basic knowledge the opportunity to study a cadaver really takes your understanding of anatomy to the next level.

It does this in several ways. Firstly to help us learn anatomy books are somewhat stylised. That is they show the muscles in a way that helps us to learn with everything more clear and simple than the real thing. Secondly books (for now anyway!) only show things in 2D. Seeing things in 3D allows us to understand depth – essential really given than muscles are 3D and are often layered on top of each other. Thirdly books don’t allow us to feel the texture of different structures and tissues within the body – something that plays an important role in identifying ‘what’ we are treating when we place hands on our clients. Finally, for clarity books generally show the muscles stripped of any ‘fascia‘, the connective tissue that surrounds every muscle and forms a web through out our bodies, to put it crudely, filling the gaps. This fascia is important as it must also be stretched to get a longer lasting improvement with our treatments.

There were 16 massage therapists attending the dissection day. In part two I’ll describe the day in more detail.

Mark is a massage therapist at Natural Balance Therapies in Hove. To book a clinical / remedial massage with Mark visit the Natural Balance Therapies website. Here you can read about the therapies, therapists and centre as well as watching videos, booking online and buying gift vouchers.

The problem with treating holistically is that it requires you to ‘treat the whole’ person, something that is admirable to aim for but difficult in practice. To my thinking it is a misuse of the word ‘holistic’ to say a massage is holistic because it’s full body.

Treating the ‘whole’ means understanding the client fully and treating them on all levels – something most of us aren’t qualified to do. If a client’s muscular pain stems from emotional trauma then a holistic treatment will need at some point to redress this through a ‘talking’ therapy. If someone’s energy is low due to the peaks and troughs of a high sugar diet the holistic approach isn’t just use ‘uplifting oils’ – it has to at some point include nutritional advice.

So can we treat holistically? The answer is absolutely yes! We should always treat holistically accepting that what we offer may not be the answer and being prepared to refer onto other health and well being professionals as appropriate. There are no holistic treatments (I’ve probably upset someone now as there are lots of qualifications out there with the word ‘holistic’ attached to them) but rather it is an approach or an ideal that we should all strive for even when doing clinical massage.    

For a ‘holistic’ approach to massage either clinical or relaxing in Brighton and Hove.. get in touch
I’m a massage therapist working at Natural Balance Therapies in Brighton. Click here to book online or call us on Brighton 771441

We then had 3 days working on the lower body with detailed demonstrations of working on everything from the feet up. Some of the work around the pelvis was quite challenging and included treating quite intimate muscles such as obturator internus.

The final 3 days of the workshop focused on the upper body and included some great work around the ribs, vertebrae, neck and my personal favourite, Psoas. I say that ironically as I have been shown how to locate and treat psoas twice before but still lacked the confidence to treat this muscle – always preferring to use a side lying hip flexor stretch. But thanks to Art I think I’ve cracked it! I have since returning to Brighton treated two clients and with both located this deep muscle very quickly using ‘soft’ fingers so that the clients reported it was intense BUT pain free.

The workshops took place at the Sue Lincoln School in Filey – a sleepy seaside town in North Yorkshire. It’s the perfect venue for intense study as there are few distractions and the location by the sea is invigorating. That said, this part of Yorkshire is stunning and I’d love to go back as a tourist at some point and visit the coast, North Yorkshire moors and York properly.