My client had tremendous pain – 12 on a scale of 10 – in the area between the shoulder blades. She begged for deep pressure massage, and that did lessen it temporarily. But after 2 days the pain remained a 12. How many times has a client begged for a tough massage in hopes of […]
As mysterious as the workings of the human body is, we massage therapists have learned a few tricks to bring errant, dysfunctional muscles back to working order. I continue to be impressed by the methods of active release, also known as myofascial release, in reviving elements of structure and function to certain muscles. I recently […]
Recently I walked into a raging discussion among massage therapists over discount pricing. To discount or not to discount is a huge bugaboo for massage therapists. Prices are subjective, of course, and one can only wonder why people ask for a discount from a single massage therapist when they wouldn’t dream of asking at a […]
Massage therapists will often have clients ask about foot or finger pain, or a strip of tightness around the knees or hips, but when is this a symptom of something gone wrong? As we rub away with our talented hands, we may have an opportunity to assess if a nerve root or disc has been […]
My education in massage did not stop with graduation from a massage school. If anything, it intensified. Now a practicing therapist, I was learning every day from the most prolific of authors, the best logisticians, the brightest of the best. It has been hard to keep up sometimes, but very rewarding. The classroom has been […]
Massage therapists know that when a client has been pulling something – wire or cable, storage boxes, dogs, etc. that they will find a host of sore and overstretched muscles. Ergonomically, it is not good to pull, but to push. Push we can do much more easily and with much less fatigue. Somehow the design […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]