When I was new to doing massage therapy, I had a habit of getting lost. Lost in the neck, lost on the back, lost in the space-time continuum. I’d glance up at my clock and see that I had spent 40 minutes massaging the back and I had 20 minutes to do the rest of … Continue reading Massage and the Full Sixty…
Got Magnesium? Turns out that might be a great slogan for massage therapists – if they look both ways and proceed with caution. Magnesium as a topical aid, and along with ingested and intravenous magnesium, has been used for a very long time in the treatment of muscular cramps and spasms. Magnesium is the other … Continue reading Adding Magnesium to Massage
Time management in the massage room can be tricky. Even with a thorough intake, you never know what you’re going to find until you get your hands on someone. It’s important, though, to keep your word to your clients. If, somehow, you can’t do what you said you would and you need to alter the plan, it’s vital … Continue reading Time Management
Clients can seek massage for stress relief and relaxation, or for therapeutic work on a specific problem. Sometimes a client with an acute problem comes for general relaxation and stress relief. You can’t assume that just because they have a chronic issue that that’s always why they’re there. I have a chronically unhappy left shoulder due to car … Continue reading Getting Lost in a Body Area
Sometimes a client just appears looking for a massage. Literally a walk-in. What can a therapist do to turn a lookie-loo into a booking? These potential clients may be trying to size up you and your spa. Offer a quick tour. If they like you and your spa, but are reluctant to make an appointment, … Continue reading Wrangling the Walk-In Massage Client
In today’s digital age, with so many of our clients (and ourselves!) spending so much time hunched around our smartphones, curled up with our tablets, and bent over our laptops, a new syndrome, which I call “computeritis,” seems endemic. It may be common for massage therapists once they hear of a client’s heavy use of such devices … Continue reading Do You Know Your Massage Client’s Hobbies?
Let’s say you have a big, beefy athlete of a client on the table, with lots of delicious areas to work on. You dive in. You get the belly of the muscles. You get into the soleus, work their erectors. You proceed to work on their arms and get into the deltoids. Everything’s great, but you have … Continue reading Massage the Full Length of Muscle
People who give massages hopefully like receiving massages. I know I do. When my therapist friends are out of town or otherwise engaged, I have a few places I will slip into to try their hands. I found one therapist purely by chance who really knows how to do meridian and nerve-based massages, something my … Continue reading Massage Hygiene and the Return Visit
I’ve noticed a ‘narrowing syndrome’ that sometimes develops among experienced massage therapists. When you first go to massage school, you learn all sorts of techniques which are new and exciting, and you try them all on your clients. Then, as you practice and become increasingly more confident, you find that a certain set of techniques emerge as your … Continue reading Don’t Let Your Massage Techniques Go Stale
We’ve all heard from clients the occasional horror stories of their having been “brutalized” in a session with another massage therapist in which techniques were used that were so deep as to be painful and leave them bruised. Some of us may have even experienced that type of massage ourselves. How does that happen? While clients do have … Continue reading Finding the Right Massage Speed