Earlier this week, I was in a group chat with a group of people I had my level 4 training with. One girl pointed out how their are courses available online to become qualified in sports massage therapy. You would think this was a joke, actually it is not.
Their are online companies offering online certifications in various holistic therapies and not only this, they are guiding them into the direction of companies who will insure them. This is not only insulting to people like myself who have spent years in training and continue to do courses to further develop myself, but also very dangerous in terms of the industry.
How can anyone doing an online course, then be certified qualified in a skill that is very much hands on and physical? Would you trust someone doing a sports massage on you with the only experience is watching a few videos online?
Talking about sports massage specifically, the treatment involves various strokes which are quite deep and damaging to soft tissue if done incorrectly. An under trained 'therapist' may also give treatments to people who are on medication which means they can not receive treatments or someone who is has an illness or disease which massage can make worse.
All this in mind, you may be wondering what to look out for when looking for someone replicable.
1. Ask them where they trained. Most professional therapist will advertise were they trained or they just tell you
2. Who are they registered with? Most will be registered with a sports or holistic association and will be on a register with other replicable therapists. An example of this is The FHT who has a register which is open to anyone to view, you can look at the area you are in specifically.
3. Are they insured? If they are registered with a sports or holistic therapies association, they will likely have insurance through that association. Most therapists will also advertise on their website/ social media or flyers that they are insured.
4. On the consultation form will be relevant information regarding your treatment and they will cover everything from how your feeling, medications, past medical history, special tests, physical assessments and have you signing forms to make sure you are fully aware of what the treatment involves. There will be more on the forms but this is just to give you an idea.
I hope this helps those of you who are concerned about things like this and gives you and ides of what to do. I wouldn't like a garage to fix my car if they got their qualification on youtube (unless it was a friend 😂)
