Questions We Get Asked

Regardless of the length you book, a first session starts with a conversation reviewing your intake forms and going deeper into where and how your pain is presenting and what it is affecting. From there we assess: past medical history, range of motion and active joint control, neural tension, and loaded movement where it makes sense for you. Then we work. We build the plan together rather than handing you one, and you leave with specific movement to take with you. We close by walking back through where you started and where you are sitting now.

No. Athletic Recovery Services is cash pay, so we do not bill insurance or Medicare, and you pay at the time of your session. We do accept HSA (health savings account) and FSA (flexible spending account) cards. Whether your plan treats this as an eligible expense is between you and your plan administrator, and some of them want a letter of medical necessity first.

A 30-minute session is $70, a 60-minute session is $140, and a 90-minute session is $210. Payment is due at the time of service. Most first visits are the 90. That is the session that includes a full movement-informed massage therapy assessment and still leaves enough time to actually work, rather than assessing you and sending you home with a plan you have not felt yet.

Athletic Recovery Services is at 307 SW 7th Place, Suite A, Cape Coral, Florida 33991. Parking is free and on site. Clients come to us from across Cape Coral, Fort Myers, and the rest of Lee County, and if you are not sure the drive makes sense for what you are dealing with, you can call (239) 424-5111 and we will talk it through before you book anything.

Yes. The office is in Cape Coral, and a good portion of our clients drive in from Fort Myers and elsewhere in Lee County. Sessions run 30 to 90 minutes, one-on-one the whole time. That is why most people find the drive worth it in a way a fifteen-minute appointment would not be. If you want to sort out whether it is worth yours, book the free 10-minute phone call first.

You will see one of two licensed massage therapists, and you choose which one when you book. Joshua Echelson, LMT, CES, has worked in the movement industry for 11 years and the massage industry for 6. Julia Estrada, LMT, joined in August 2026, has worked in the movement industry for 9 years, and has held her massage therapy license for 2. She is bilingual in English and Spanish. Both of them assess before they treat. Both build the session around the person in front of them, rather than running the same protocol on everybody who walks in.

There is a large amount of crossover between these three professions, so the honest answer is that it depends first on where you are in your own journey with pain and recovery. Did this just happen? Is it a new surgery? Has it been lingering for a year? That moves the decision more than the letters after anyone's name do. After that it is the individual practitioner and whether they are a fit for you. Then the practical piece: are you trying to use only your insurance, or are you in a position to pay cash? If you are bound to insurance and healing from a surgery, a physical therapy clinic is usually the right first stop. If you want something fast and inexpensive, there are quicker options than us. The only real way to sort out the rest is to call a few places and ask whether they want to hear your story.

We are a cash-pay massage therapy practice, not a physical therapy clinic. The difference comes down to scope of practice, licensure, time, and the goal of treatment depending on where you are in the injury cycle, among other things. We refer out when what you need starts to lean in the direction of physical therapy rather than massage therapy and strengthening. We do run similar 30, 60, or 90-minute sessions, one-on-one with the same clinician the whole way through. There is no fixed protocol, and we build the plan around you as an individual rather than handing you a premade script. Most people find us after they have already been through physical therapy, chiropractic care, or surgery, and we pride ourselves on being a clinic where people find a home after they have not found success somewhere else.

Yes, and the line is worth being specific about. Florida defines massage therapy as the manipulation of the soft tissues of the body with the hand, foot, knee, arm, or elbow, and the same definition covers that manipulation being aided by thermal therapy or by any electrical or mechanical device (Fla. Stat. 480.033). That is what puts hands-on work, percussion devices, e-stim, and tools like flossing bands inside the license, where they are used to aid soft-tissue work. The Board rules add that treatment employs the techniques, modalities, or skills the assessment found appropriate for you. Strength work is a separate thing. Loaded movement is not massage therapy and Florida does not license exercise instruction at all, which is why Joshua Echelson carries a Corrective Exercise Specialist certification for that side of the work. When what you need moves past both, we refer out.

Massage therapy is the license and it is the scope we work in, but the session is active rather than something done to you while you lie still. You will be working. We pair manual therapy with controlled range of motion, breath work, guided questioning, and progressive load, because the change has to hold up under what you actually do. If a quieter, more traditional relaxation-style massage is what you are after, Julia offers those sessions. Say so when you book and we will get you onto her schedule.

No. Athletic Recovery Services does not offer shockwave therapy, IV therapy, or dry needling. What we do is hands-on manual therapy paired with active range of motion, breath work, and loaded movement, one-on-one, in 30, 60, or 90-minute sessions. If one of those other services is specifically what you came looking for, we can refer you to great clinics that offer them.

How we like to use the term is for your body's ability to absorb load and insult, and building that is what we are actually doing in a session. We use that term instead of talking about preventing injuries. We cannot promise you that, and neither can anyone else. What can be built is headroom, meaning more room between what you ask your body to do and the point where it complains. That gets built at end range, under load, with control, and it takes consistency more than it takes intensity.

That depends on your specific goals, what is going on, and how long it has been going on. Anybody who gives you a number before assessing you is guessing. Some people come in for a handful of sessions around one specific problem, and some settle into a longer rhythm that shifts toward management or goal-based training once the acute thing is handled, which is usually a different goal than the one they walked in with. The honest version is that recovery dips and climbs rather than moving in a straight line, so we set the frequency after the first session and adjust it as you go.

Some of it is uncomfortable, and none of it should be something you are just enduring. We work at the edge of what you can tolerate rather than past it, and we ask you what you are feeling throughout instead of telling you what you should be feeling, because the awareness you build of your own body is a real part of what makes the work hold. You stay in control. If something is too much, say so and we adjust. Most people describe the work as intense in the moment and noticeably easier to move afterward.

We are not the right fit if you want someone to fix you without your participation, or if you need a quick and inexpensive reset. We are also not the right fit if you are bound to your insurance and need care billed through it. This work asks you to be an active participant, and it takes consistency. If that sounds wrong for where you are right now, we would rather point you somewhere better than take your money.