Massage near Old Hickory for a back that has been sore for weeks

Five of them run late. Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday are 10 AM to 8 PM, so a 90 minute session has to be on the table by 6:30 PM. Sunday runs noon to 7 PM. Tuesday closes at 4 PM, which makes it the wrong day for anything long after work.

Appointments go through Square, and (615) 835-2603 reaches the front desk if you would rather say the day and the length out loud. Whichever way you book, name the length as well as the day, because deep tissue is offered at 60 and 90 minutes only.

$100 for 60 minutes and $140 for 90 minutes — the two lengths deep tissue is booked at. Regular table massage costs less and runs to more lengths: $60 for a half hour, $70 for 45 minutes, $80 for the hour, $120 for 90 minutes and $160 for the full two hours.

Both are done on the table, both keep you under the sheet, and both take whatever pressure you ask for during the session.

Harder pressure and more time in one place, at the cost of covering less of you. An hour of deep tissue will not travel as far across the body as an hour of regular table massage, because muscle only lets go slowly when it is pressed that hard. If the whole back is generally tired, the $80 hour is the better booking. If one shoulder has been the problem for a month, spend the extra.

Short-term, for some people, on evidence the reviewers themselves rate as weak. A 2015 review took 25 studies together, with 3,096 participants between them, and found short-term improvement in pain after massage in both new and long-running low-back pain — then concluded the study quality was low enough that the authors had "very little confidence" in it. NCCIH sets that out in its massage therapy overview.

The clinical guidance follows the same shape. The American College of Physicians listed massage in its 2017 guideline as an option for low-back pain that has lasted under twelve weeks, and left it off the list for pain that has run longer. A 2018 review by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality found slightly greater effects on pain and function one to six months after a course of massage, and no evidence of an effect at six to twelve months. Both come from NCCIH's page on complementary approaches to low-back pain.

That is a decent case for booking a table session while your back is sore, and a poor case for treating one as the answer to a back that has hurt all year. We would rather you knew which of those you are buying.

Pain that runs down a leg, numbness or weakness anywhere, pain after a fall, or anything that wakes you most nights belongs with a doctor before it belongs on a table. Nobody here assesses or diagnoses. NCCIH's tips on massage therapy make the point in one line: do not use massage therapy to postpone seeing a health care provider about a medical problem.

Firm enough that you can feel the work, easy enough that you are still breathing normally. A muscle that is bracing is not letting go, so pressure that makes you hold your breath works against the hour you paid for.

Give the therapist a place and a number in the first couple of minutes. "Left side of the lower back, and tell me when you have me at a 7" is far more use than "as deep as you can go", which is the request most likely to end in a session you did not enjoy.

NCCIH puts the risk of harmful effects from massage as low overall, while noting rare reports of serious problems such as a blood clot, nerve injury or bone fracture. Several of those reported cases involved vigorous techniques, deep tissue among them, or people already at raised risk of injury. Firm work should not hurt, and saying so out loud changes it inside a stroke or two.

More often than one appointment, if you are going by the studies. The trials that find a benefit almost always run a course of massage over several weeks rather than a single visit.

A 2014 evaluation of 9 studies with 404 participants between them found that massage improved pain, anxiety and depression in people with fibromyalgia when it was continued for at least 5 weeks, and found no effect on sleep disturbance; NCCIH lists it in what the science says about massage. Fibromyalgia is a different problem from a stiff lower back, so the numbers do not transfer. The shape of the result is the part worth borrowing: the benefit showed up over weeks of sessions, not after one.

In practice, book what you can afford to repeat. An $80 hour every other week is a plan you can keep. A $140 session once a season is a treat, and there is nothing wrong with buying one, as long as you are not expecting it to do the work of a schedule.

At $70 the 45 minute table massage is the easiest one to keep booking through a tight month, and Combination A pairs 30 minutes of foot reflexology with 30 minutes on the table for $90. Neither is deep tissue, and both keep you on a schedule, which is closer to what the research describes than one expensive session twice a year.

Not directly, and we would rather say that than sell you the hour. Foot reflexology at LJY is $50 for 30 minutes and $80 for 60 minutes, and it is firm pressure on specific spots of the feet, ankles and lower legs. The idea that those spots connect to other parts of the body comes from a long tradition, not from a set of trials.

Massage has reviews behind it covering thousands of participants, quality caveats and all; reflexology has nothing on that scale. So if your lower back is the problem, the table is the right booking — the deep tissue page goes further into how that hour is worked, and the Donelson page covers the shorter sessions.