I am trained in sports massage, we were taught the goal should certainly be to get to the full depth of the muscle in order to ease it, however, we were not taught necessarily to inflict unnecessairy pain for the sake of pain. I can feel when at the bottom of a muscle, whether or not there is a thickened area or knot, so why should I have to force extra pain because the client demands it? The experience and knowledge is to know and feel the difference between clients, obviously no one ever has the same muscle bulk as the next person. We have to tailor our techniques accordingly. I will admit there is some pain experienced when first we massage knots in muscles, but if I hurt more surely the muscle will spasm more as a reflex and therefore, make my work more difficult and time consuming. Not sure what the research is on that. If you have a sports massage with me, let me find the knots and do my job, you don’t question how the mechanic fixes your car or the vet your dog.