Category Archives: Massage Techniques

Knowing Your Client – What Works For One Person Doesn’t Work For All

Building Your Practice, Dealing with Medical Conditions, Find Touch Announcements, Massage Techniques, , ,

In the early days of a massage therapist’s career, discovering which techniques work well in a treatment session can be baffling. Is it deep tissue? Soothing strokes? Is it short sessions? Long sessions? Is it movement? Breath? Is it the clients’ mindset? Perceived value? Desire? Somehow fumbling about in our dim-lit treatment rooms we establish … Continue reading Knowing Your Client – What Works For One Person Doesn’t Work For All →

Providing Quadriceps Massage

Dealing with Medical Conditions, Find Touch Announcements, Massage Techniques, , , ,

My massage therapy client has been working very hard to lose weight. She is going to the gym four times a week, training under the watch of two very good kiniesiology trainers, and eating a diabetic diet. She has lost more than 70 pounds in the past year. That is a little fast to lose … Continue reading Providing Quadriceps Massage →

Muscles or Tendons?

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Massage therapists have their favorite spots to approach changing patterns of movement and improving function. Over the years, I have asked the question often: Muscles or tendons? My early experience dictated muscles. There we find bunched-up, dysfunctional fibers and endplates. Trigger point theory called for a full cleansing of these scatterbrains, along with their associates … Continue reading Muscles or Tendons? →

Zombies vs. Massage Therapists

Community Stories, Massage Techniques, ,

One of my most fun massage therapy clients likes to update me on his activities and the connection between what he has been doing and what is going on in his neck, back, hands, etc. I don’t get a laundry list of precarious Christmas lights installations or kneecaps wondering off by themselves on Audubon bird-sighting … Continue reading Zombies vs. Massage Therapists →

They are Called Trigger Points for a Reason…

Massage Techniques, Self-Care, Touchy Situations, , ,

The nice man who likes to run every day came into my massage therapy office looking for some relief. I thought I was going to do a massage – but it turned out to be an intervention. This man had gotten a hold of a trigger point therapy workbook. He had been doing his own … Continue reading They are Called Trigger Points for a Reason… →

Massage Relief for Reflux and Indigestion

Building Your Practice, Massage Techniques, Touchy Situations, , ,

So many people work on computers and in hunched positions that massage therapists are seeing more clients for acid reflux and heartburn problems. Recently I doctors have referred clients for massage to relieve reflux, and the results seem good. I wanted to offer some treatment tips. First, reflux symptoms – burning in the throat, burping … Continue reading Massage Relief for Reflux and Indigestion →

Stalking the Numb Thumb

Building Your Practice, Massage Techniques, , ,

Sometimes massage therapists are faced with a whodunit – and it takes a good bit of detective work to unveil the unusual suspect. The fun of massage therapy, I find, is solving these puzzles and giving a client not only relief but also the confidence that they will get better. Recently a client came in … Continue reading Stalking the Numb Thumb →

Stalking those Darn SCMs

Massage Techniques, , , ,

The massage client who can’t turn the head, the headache that arcs over the ear to the ridge of the eyebrow, the sensation of steel cables squeezing the anterior neck: These are all signs of those darn sternal-cleido-mastoids. We massage therapists see these symptoms frequently, and I have made a hobby of asking other therapists … Continue reading Stalking those Darn SCMs →

Touching the Masses

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Chair massage is a great way to deliver massage services – and it offers independence for many therapists who don’t want to be limited to table services. This new era of chair massage is a big step forward. When it started more than 25 years ago, chair was seen by some traditional massage therapists as … Continue reading Touching the Masses →