By Les Ong on December 14, 2025
Andrew Chitwood brings an engineer’s precision and a healer’s heart to therapeutic massage in Knoxville
When Andrew Chitwood tells you he’s been doing massage since he was seven years old, you might raise an eyebrow. But his story isn’t your typical career path. It’s a journey that began with a child’s simple desire to help his tired parents feel better after long workdays, evolved through multiple career chapters, and ultimately led him to discover his true calling in therapeutic bodywork.
Today, as a Licensed Massage Therapist working with Phoenix Performance Massage in Knoxville, Andrew brings a unique perspective to his practice. One shaped by an engineering background, diverse life experiences, and an unwavering commitment to understanding how the human body works and, more importantly, how to fix it when something goes wrong.
Andrew’s early fascination with massage stemmed from a childlike bargain: if he could make his parents’ aches and pains disappear, they’d have the energy to play with him. “I’d want someone to run around and kick a soccer ball with me,” Andrew recalls. “And they’d say, my feet hurt today, or my back hurts. And I’d say, well, if I rub it and make it feel better, will you play with me then?”
That early instinct to help people, combined with an insatiable curiosity about how things work, has been the driving force throughout Andrew’s life. Before entering the massage therapy field four and a half years ago, he explored various industries, including grocery management, restaurant operations, and sales management with a major tech company. All the while, he was pursuing a mechanical and design engineering degree at the University of Tennessee.
“I like to understand how things work, and my motivation is always to help people improve,” Andrew explains. “Whether that’s accomplishing a task easier or rehabilitating an injury, I’m always looking at how to empower people to get them to a better state of being.”
What sets Andrew apart in the massage therapy field is his analytical mindset. With his engineering background, he approaches the body as a complex system of interconnected parts, each needing to function properly for optimal performance.
“I have a background in engineering, so I look at the body very analytically, trying to evaluate what is where it’s supposed to be, what’s moving properly,” Andrew says. This perspective allows him to identify issues that others might miss and develop targeted treatment plans for each client’s unique needs.
Andrew specializes in clinical and rehabilitative massage, focusing squarely on the therapeutic side of bodywork. He’s quick to clarify that he’s not your typical Swedish relaxation therapist. Instead, his toolkit includes deep tissue work, cupping, hot stones, Thai massage, and he’s even introducing bioelectric meridian therapy to the United States.
“I incorporate electrical stimulation into my massages to help treat the nervous system directly and reach and activate different muscle groups that are either inaccessible in a standard massage or just can’t handle pressure or touch the way that they need,” he explains.
Andrew received his foundational training from Arbor College of Massage in Knoxville, completing a comprehensive nine-month program that included over 200 hours of direct hands-on work with the general public. But his education didn’t stop there.
Over the past four years, Andrew has built upon that foundation through continuing education classes and invaluable hands-on experience at prestigious establishments like Blackberry Farms and Blackberry Mountain. These opportunities allowed him to refine his skills with various modalities and devices while working with a diverse clientele, including professional athletes.
“I have come to find in life that one size fits all really only works for ball caps,” Andrew says with a smile. “Every human I interact with has completely unique needs. Even if I work with the same client three or four sessions, the needs that their body presents that day are almost always different from what I have seen before.”
With over 8,000 hands-on hours of experience now under his belt, Andrew can assess a tremendous amount just through touch: hydration levels, stretching habits, past injuries, and even nutritional patterns. But he’s also humble about the limits of his perception.
Andrew is adamant that successful treatment requires partnership between therapist and client. He can locate tension and identify problem areas, but he can’t feel a client’s discomfort level.
“I may have been able to find the knot, and I may have an idea of what that particular muscle can normally handle, but I need clients, having known their body their whole lives, to communicate that they need just a little bit more or just a little bit less,” he explains.
His only requirements for potential clients? A willingness to communicate and a genuine desire for improvement. That openness allows Andrew to work with an incredibly diverse demographic, from high school athletes to individuals in their 60s and 70s who have spent decades in physically demanding careers.
While Andrew welcomes anyone seeking improvement, he has a particular passion for helping people whose livelihoods depend on repetitive physical tasks. Hairstylists, barbers, tattoo artists, dental professionals, auto mechanics: these are the professionals Andrew actively seeks out.
“These are people who have an array of tools that they use, but I feel like they forget that this is the most important and most valuable tool,” Andrew says, gesturing to his own body. “And if you don’t take care of it, you can’t replace it.”
His goal is to help active individuals continue doing what they love, for as long as possible, without pain or limitation.
If you’re looking for a standardized, routine massage experience, Andrew will be the first to tell you he’s not your therapist. Each session is uniquely tailored to what the client’s body needs on that particular day.
“You can see me on Monday this week and you can see me on Monday next week, and if you come in next week and you ask me for the exact same massage, I will honestly tell you I can’t,” Andrew says. “Every massage I give is unique.”
This customized approach stems from his analytical assessment of how tissues are functioning and his understanding of individual tension patterns. Rather than following a predetermined routine, Andrew treats each session as a new opportunity to peel back the layers and encourage the body to rehabilitate itself.
Another quality that sets Andrew apart is his intellectual honesty. In a field where practitioners sometimes feel pressure to have all the answers, Andrew takes a different approach.
“If you ask questions that I don’t know the answer to, I will tell you I don’t know the answer,” he states plainly. “And you can bet the next time you see me, I will have made steps to try and see if I can find an answer or find somebody else who has that knowledge base.”
This commitment to integrity over ego creates a foundation of trust with his clients and demonstrates his genuine dedication to their wellbeing over his own appearance of expertise.
Andrew’s worldview was significantly shaped by a two-week study abroad program in Taiwan during the summer of 2011. Having learned Mandarin in high school, the cultural immersion gave him fresh perspective on what excellence means.
“The biggest thing I brought back was people’s level of honor and pride in what they do,” Andrew reflects. “Not to the point of ego, but there’s a passion about learning, about giving your all. That honor and integrity driving everything to a state of excellence.”
That philosophy of excellence without ego perfectly encapsulates Andrew’s approach to his practice. His tagline says it all: “All skills, no frills.”
“People can make inferior things look amazing by throwing glitter and fancy signs and pretty words on things,” Andrew observes. “But at the end of the day, if quality is not there, quality is not there.”
When he’s not helping clients achieve their physical goals, Andrew is devoted to his two-year-old son. The balance between building a business and being an active parent keeps his schedule full, though he still finds time for his passions: good food and music.
Andrew also values giving back to the community. He volunteers time at local food kitchens when possible and stays connected to the Boy Scouts, an organization that played a formative role in his youth.
Though Andrew lives about 45 minutes outside the city in the Corrington/Halls-Gibbs area, he chose to establish his practice in Knoxville for good reason. Originally from just outside Orlando, Florida, Andrew moved to the Knoxville area with his family in 2006 when he was 10 years old. Tennessee has now been home longer than anywhere else.
“Knoxville has people from all over the United States. We’re inclusive,” Andrew notes. “There’s a lot of cultural diversity here. There’s just a lot of open-minded people here that you don’t necessarily find elsewhere, and there seems to be more camaraderie.”
He also appreciates that Knoxville offers “a little bit of everything,” making it an ideal place for therapeutic massage to thrive beyond being viewed as merely a luxury service.
As Andrew continues to build his practice with Phoenix Performance Massage, his mission remains crystal clear: empower people to take charge of their own physical wellbeing. By combining his analytical approach with compassionate care and cutting-edge techniques like bioelectric meridian therapy, he’s helping clients not just manage pain, but understand their bodies better and achieve lasting improvement.
Whether you’re an athlete pushing your limits, a professional whose career demands repetitive motions, or simply someone seeking to move through life with less pain and more vitality, Andrew’s approach offers something refreshingly different. No routines. No pretense. Just honest assessment, skilled treatment, and a genuine commitment to helping you become the best version of yourself.
If you’re tired of cookie-cutter massages and ready for therapeutic bodywork that treats you as the unique individual you are, it’s time to discover what Andrew Chitwood and Phoenix Performance Massage can do for you.
Location: 215 Center Park Dr, Suite 1700, Knoxville, Tennessee 37922
(Conveniently located between Farragut and Cedar Bluff, just outside Turkey Creek, across from Honda AutoNation on Parkside Drive)
Phone: (423) 525-6174
Email: chitwood2014@gmail.com
Website: phoenixperformancemassage.com
Social Media: Facebook
Don’t let pain hold you back from doing what you love. Schedule your personalized consultation and discover how analytical precision and therapeutic expertise can help you move better, feel better, and live better.
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