Massage in Alafaya

Dr. Marc Ott has learned much about the human body in his years of treating sore muscles and spinal conditions, but one lesson stands out. “It's rare that what has made one patient better will be the same for the next,” he claims, and in keeping with this belief he and his staff strive to integrate traditional and alternative practices within their customized health-care plans.

More often than not, these plans involve some combination of chiropractic care and massage therapy. The former can relieve chronic pains with spinal adjustments, nutritional counseling, and holistic lifestyle advice, while the latter targets adhesions with Swedish, deep-tissue, and lymphatic-drainage techniques. These treatments—along with specialized procedures such as joint injections—can provide long-lasting relief from injuries sustained while playing sports or leveling parking meters with your monster truck.

Licensed massage therapist Dorothy Mallett has been soothing sore backs for long enough to understand that no two are the same. In order to heal the wide range of ailments she confronts on a daily basis, she integrates several ancient massage techniques into her sessions. Though her targeted strokes are effective enough on their own, Dorothy often enhances them with warm oils and creams, hot stones, and moist heat to melt away tension and prevent friction. Massages aren’t the only spa treatments she has mastered. Her organic facials tend to skin above the shoulders by removing oil from pores and embarrassing traces of mom’s lipstick from cheeks.

Jai Michael Barry's massages are as relaxing as the new-age music he loves to create. That's because the founder of Ancient Art Massage & Bodywork, who has recorded three albums and played numerous benefit concerts in his other life as a songwriter, gets the little details right: the massages take place on heated tables and incorporate treatments ranging from ayurvedic aromatherapy to egyptian ear candling. It's also because his repertoire is so broad. Jai can spend a session relieving stress with Swedish techniques, treating head and back pain with craniosacral therapy, or manipulating the body's energy with reiki. He also leads meditation sessions on the night of each full moon.

If the body is an instrument, then Doctor Albertina Logan is a professional tuner of corporeal pegs. With a background in chiropractic and massage, her office treats areas of chronic pain and tension, marrying a medical understanding of anatomy with alternative medicinal approaches. She believes that prevention is the best medicine when it comes to injuries, so she provides education to help patients understand their bodies both through her website and her Outreach Program.

Leveraging a collective average of more than 15 years of experience, the licensed and certified massage therapists at Altamonte Springs Massage tend to all manner of sore muscles and soft-tissue maladies. To begin each session, the staff listens to clients’ needs and pairs them with the therapist best qualified to treat their conditions. The therapists then blend a variety of techniques—Swedish, deep-tissue, trigger-point, sports, and neuromuscular massage—to provide relief that's otherwise unattainable from a single modality or a series of slap fights.

A Healing Massage Room’s Leslie Heinricher goes where she is needed. Some days, she whisks to an injury clinic to assist car-accident victims; others, she appears at spas, robed in the aromatic mist of essential oils. Leslie wards off pain and suffering with therapeutic strokes honed at the Florida School of Massage. Her Swedish massages fight tension with gentle taps and circular motions that dislodge knots and boost blood flow. She custom-blends soothing techniques including neuromuscular therapy and myofascial release to ease pains associated with whiplash, sports injuries, carpal tunnel syndrome, and other ailments. Leslie also specializes in energy treatments such as reiki and polarity therapy, which clear blockages and toll booths interfering with the body’s energy pathways.