sports masage/therapy

I just googled your question - perhaps you should too, if you are unsure which direction you want to go with a new career - sports massage may be an intro to further, in depth, training in Sports Therapy:

Sports Massage: Sports massage focuses on muscles relevant to an event. For athletes who train continuously, the goal is to enhance endurance, lessen the chance of injury and shorten the time needed to recover from an event.Sports Massage may utilize a variety of techniques such as classical Swedish Massage, trigger point therapy, and hydrotherapy. Prior to an athletic event, Sports Massage may be used with stretching in order to help athletes to loosen, warm and prepare their muscles so that their performance and endurance might be enhanced. Following an athletic event, Sports Massage may be used to relieve pain, prevent stiffness, and return the muscles back to their normal state. Sports Massage may also be used for injury rehabilitation.

Sports Therapy:
A sports therapist may be involved in any or all of the following activities:
conducting an assessment of the players', athletes' or participants' readiness and advising on exercises prior to an event or fixture; testing joints for ease and range of movement; strapping taping, offering massage and preparing players, athletes or participants both physically and mentally; providing emergency aid in a sport and exercise environment; examining and assessing injuries and determining whether the athlete or participant can continue playing or taking part; examining and assessing injuries and dealing with traumas, e.g. cuts, bruises and blisters; treating injuries, alleviating pain, mobilising injuries, giving various types of massage; rehabilitating injuries by using manual therapy techniques, apparatus and electrotherapy; designing and monitoring rehabilitation programmes appropriate to the injury and/or sport and level; deciding whether athletes, players or participants need extra treatments and coordinating referrals to other practitioners; advising players or athletes on diet and nutrition (when therapists are appropriately trained); working alone or with coaches, trainers and/or fitness advisers to implement exercise, conditioning, core stability and injury prevention programmes, so that athletes, players or participants reach and maintain peak performance; liaising with other health professionals in the sports sector and in mainstream medicine.

Hi Kirstie,
that's a good response from Jabba. If you are doing level 3 sports massage, its mainly used as a foundation now, and if you want a career in the industry, lots of therapists undergo further training to supplement their skills.

There are lots of changes to sports massage courses underway, so as yet I am not sure what their content is going to be.

One bit of advice would be to have a good knowledge of the musculo-skeletal system, especially (if its ITEC), muscle attachment points and bony prominences!

Hope it all goes well for you.