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I wanted to write a testimonial for Steve after he has helped me to achieve some life-long goals.

This year, for the first time I started getting leg massage as part of my preparation for racing and recovery from training. Since getting regular massage from Steve it has felt like I have been racing on someone else's legs this year, so great is the difference in my performance!

 

To give a bit of background to the story; I started racing bikes when I was 14. I am now 54. My focus has always been on time trials, and particularly 10 and 25 miles. As a junior I was riding at top national level, but then spent a number of years doing the sex and drugs and rock'n'roll thing, basically destroying myself! I started racing again aged 40.

 

I have something like a 5-10mm difference in leg length between left and right legs. (Very common). This causes my pelvis to rotate under pressure, (Carrying children, hard training and racing and working as a builder), and the lower back knots up and becomes very inflamed, consequently I carry a lot of stiffness in my back and legs.

 

My training methods have always been very old school. Lots of steady winter miles, race myself fit, no heart rate monitor or watt counters and an allergy to interval training. Within a couple of years of starting racing my 10 mile times where a consistent 21 minutes, and the 25 times down to 54 minutes. For a few years I was winning regularly in local races. In the years since then I have gradually whittled away at those times done in 2001-3.

 

But racing when you are 54 is very different to racing at the age of 40 or even 44. They say that "The methods you use are perfect for the results you are getting"!

 

If you want to get different results you have to use different methods.

 

So last year I changed everything.

 

As well as clocking up lots of long and quality miles I started serious interval training. On a rowing machine and on the bike. 1k sprints to exhaustion on the rower, and brutal sessions of 2mins on, 2 mins off on the turbo trainer.

 

No more racing 3 times a week for eight months! This year was about targeting 3 or 4 races a month in 10-14 day blocks. This allowed for lots of quality miles between races, weeks of intervals and rest, and tapering down to race days.

 

Total races this year. 11 on the tandem and 7 on the bike.

 

Results: 4 best ever times on the tandem and 3 best ever times on the bike. After years of chipping away a few seconds at a time from my best times, this year I demolished both my 10 and 25 mile times, taking 45 seconds off my 10 record and 1 minute and 35 seconds off my 25 time.

 

20.06 for 10 miles = 29.85 mph. 51.38 for 25 miles = 29.05mph.

 

At 54 years old I honestly expected to be gradually getting slower and watching the slide down the results board, I am staggered at the times I have posted.

 

As an older athlete and a builder, I suffer from the usual aches and stiffness. At the end of last year I was suffering with severe back pain, but unable to stop work. Walking anywhere was very painful and I felt crippled. After 'sorting me out' the Osteopath recommended I use regular massage to help keep me in shape. In January I started seeing Steve for a deep leg massage once a month. During the season this is always 2 or 3 days before a big race, to unknot all the damage of hard training and building, and give time to let the legs recover.

 

Over the year I have noticed a significant 'loosening up' and suppleness in my pedalling action. As the season progressed I found myself feeling more and more 'fluid' on the bike in both racing and training. When racing in the few solo bike races I have done I have been able to put the power down with much more ease than I have ever known. It really has felt like Steve has given me new legs.

 

Massage is no quick fix to going faster, I have trained long and hard and consistently for years. There is no short cut round suffering on the bike.

 

The experts say that if you go into a Wind Tunnel Testing Facility in order to try and make yourself more aerodynamic on the bike and therefore faster, some people will find a position which can save a minute or even more over a 10 mile race, whilst others might only gain a few seconds.

 

I am sure leg massage is the same. I have benefited big time, where as others might not feel such a drastic improvement.

 

All I can say is, that if all the pro's use regular massage, it must be for a reason.

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Thankyou Steve.