Susan Smith-Massie

Upstate Spine & Sport

1000 Laurens Rd., Suite A, Greenville, SC, 29607

Susan has spent more than 30 years learning where pain actually lives, and she is best known for necks and shoulders. Clients have described her neck work as magical. Her approach is built on precision rather than pressure: find the right structure, work it at the right depth, and let the tissue do the rest. Susan trained at the Reese Institute in Florida, completing dual internships in sports injuries with the Rollins College athletic department and in neuromuscular therapy at the Judith Walker International School of Massage. She began teaching students at Reese in 1994 and has been teaching in some form ever since. She spent nine years working inside an orthopedic surgeon's practice in Orlando, which is where much of her clinical eye was built. She moved to the Upstate a year and a half ago to be near her daughter and grandchildren. Her toolkit includes neuromuscular therapy, trigger point, deep tissue, craniosacral, Swedish, reflexology, and Kinesio taping, and she earned her neck and whiplash certification in 2011. Every session is designed around the person on the table rather than a routine. Susan is also direct with her clients about what good work should feel like. There is a difference between productive discomfort and too much, and she wants people advocating for themselves rather than gritting through it, because a client who is bracing against you is a client you cannot help. Outside the clinic, Susan comes from decades in the equine world and still develops and teaches her own equine massage certification program. She walks two miles most days. She is thrilled to be part of Upstate Spine & Sport and to serve the Greenville community.