A treatment plan is what elevates massage therapy from a service to a therapeutic profession. It is the tangible output of our clinical reasoning.
Deep gluteal syndrome can be triggered by multiple causes. Sorting through those causes can be tricky, but doing so will also help your clients.
Context is powerful: Even light, mindful touch can significantly shift pain and proprioception, reminding us that how we work matters as much as what we do.
Therapy tools can help massage therapists with pain or limited mobility.
Considering the situation that led to your client’s pain can prove as valuable as understanding where the pain exists.
Scars certainly impact their immediate vicinity, but they can also have a wide-ranging effect beyond that area. Understanding these impacts as a massage therapist can better your client's quality of life.
Sciatic nerve pain can indicate an underlying issue: Certain structures within its path in the lumbosacral, pelvic, and gluteal regions may compress or irritate the nerve.
Don't stop at the neck when your client has a headache. Keep working your way down. You (and your client) might be surprised at what you find.
With more people than ever before undergoing knee surgery, understanding how massage therapy can complement the recovery process is crucial for you and your clients.
The pronation-supination technique is a gentle yet powerful way to address forearm, wrist, and hand issues by combining sustained pressure with passive pronation-supination.
Use your knowledge of the pectoralis major, its closeness to breath, and how it works to your advantage.
The thoracic spine not only structurally supports the head and neck but also serves as a bridge between the upper and lower body and contributes to balance and mobility.
When one muscle or tissue area is tight, a direct approach may only aggravate it more. Consider employing an alternative option.
Regardless of the techniques used, how you touch your client is incredibly important to their overall experience.
The metatarsophalangeal joint of the big toe is often overlooked with regard to proper and improper function. That said, it is important to consider as part of the possible kinematics of a client's condition.
Massage therapy can play a significant role in treating nerve pain. But learning those various types of pain is key to understanding how massage can help.
Exercise and stretching might be what the doctor ordered, but pandiculation could be a combo to help clients go a little further, and with your assistance.
Due to immense physical demands, dancers commonly experience a variety of ankle and foot injuries. Massage can be used to provide physical and mental benefits during recovery.
Because you amass a wealth of knowledge in your profession does not mean you'll have answers to questions ready at hand. It does mean, however, all that knowledge can teach you to keep your mind open for more.
Instead of avoiding ticklish feet, there are ways to collaborate with clients so a full-body message is exactly that—a full-body massage.
Sidelying not only offers technical benefits, like allowing therapists to easily mobilize joints, access lateral areas of the body, and perform movement-based approaches, but it can also be safer for some clients.
Being prepared with compassion, a little learning, and talking points for conversation with your elderly client is all it takes to help ease concerns regarding massage for the feet.
The latissimus dorsi can struggle when complementary muscles don't help out.
Variations of nerve injuries warrant understanding their differences in helping clients experiencing neuropathic pain.
When working with clients with shoulder discomfort, massage therapists often disregard or forget to consider the sternoclavicular joint.
Grief isn't something to be fixed but held, allowing clients to process it at their own pace without judgment or urgency.
Learning the specifics of the intrinsic muscles of the hand is knowledge that may not be used often, but for those clients who present with issues in their hands, it can prove invaluable.
Solving a client's puzzling condition can help you become a better massage therapist.
Nerve gliding positions the body to isolate nerve branches and then encourages the nerves to slide/stretch.
Marma points can unlock a wealth of information about imbalances in the body; marma massage is the Ayurvedic tool practitioners can use to get there.
Lessening lifelong chronic pain through bodywork can often require a lifestyle change for clients after the healing begins.
Low-back pain is not only costly, it's often hard to diagnose. Taking a proper health history and exploring assessment tools will get practitioners closer to finding an answer for their clients.
Reading the body remains a pseudoscience; yet, examining the mystery of body types through systems like Ayurveda or somatotyping can help practitioners approach each client in ways distinct to their constitution.
Massaging the masseter—the main player in biting, chewing, and teeth grinding—can contribute to alleviating headaches.
Craniosacral therapy may have benefits for families as they move through their child-bearing journey.
Understanding how muscle spindles and Golgi tendon organs contribute to proprioception can aid in providing effective care for clients.
Snags in the kinetic chain can cause a domino effect that leads to various issues.
According to Ayurvedic principles, when we are aligned with nature, the body and mind have an incredible capacity to heal and thrive.
Building a connection from the moment you come in contact with a client can lead to a healthy, long-standing business relationship.
The "pain detective game" may help you sharpen your palpation assessments and clinical reasoning skills. Use ART (asymmetry, restriction of motion, and tissue texture abnormalities) to more quickly identify how one side of the body moves in relation to the other.
The knowledge that a fifth quad muscle exists gives us a greater ability to be even more nuanced and detailed with our techniques.
Rotator cuff issues can vary from mild strains to severe tears, posing treatment dilemmas. Massage can play a key role in conservative treatments if the therapy is well-designed and targeted to the client's individual presentation.
Researchers found that pain arising from the lumbar Z joints accounts for 10-15 percent of mechanical back pain in young adults and up to 40 percent in older people. Leveling the head and tail is one biomechanical approach to restoring balance.
When clients with diabetes are older, they will, more than likely, present with common conditions like thinning skin, fragile bones, atrophied muscles, and brittle tendons.
Multiple exercises and techniques can help improve thumb pain. Using various products designed to protect the thumbs can help limit or prevent injuries.
When the symptoms span a greater area, step back and consider what larger principle could explain it.
Whether it's pressure-filled moments during our first years as practicing bodyworkers or the question of how much pressure a client wants during a session, gaining perspective is a handy tool.
Massage therapy is a core component for treating ankle sprains and is used with other treatments used by other providers, such as laser therapy, ultrasound, microcurrent, and electrical stimulation.
A client's sensations and experience in a session likely have more to do with their brain's sensory predictions than about what we actually do with our hands. We can use this principle to help shift our clients' habitual tension, pain, or movement challenges by working with them to help their brains discover new experiences and update its predictions.
Releasing tension in tight suboccipitals and creating the opportunity for proper atlas and axis alignment becomes an important goal when clients report head and neck pain.
Rather than enforce physical symmetry, Aston Kinetics (which trains people in movement, bodywork, fitness, and ergonomics) seeks to recognize the asymmetries natural to a person's body.
Palliative care is an added layer of support for people living with chronic or serious illness. It enhances people's care by offering quality of life for them and their family. And your touch can make a difference in all their lives.
Consider employing new techniques and strategies with clients in order to remain fresh and mentally invigorated.
Tension overload can limit blood flow and nerve flow. Working this area can lead to much-needed relief.
Using the movements of belly dancers engages the body in rarely used or unfamiliar movement patterns. This enhances the body-mind connection and helps the body release unnecessary muscle guarding.
There are seven conditions that can cause or contribute to shoulder impingement syndrome. Understanding the underlying biomechanical pathophysiology and function helps us creatively apply our hands-on assessment and treatment skills.
Removing the strain and tension caused by cumulative fascial forces on the internal organs, blood vessels, lymph, and nerves helps the body find homeostasis.
Research has proven that bodyworkers and massage therapists can share their clients' emotional and/or physical symptoms.
Finding a solution doesn't always come from knowledge. Sometimes, practitioners have to go a little deeper to find wisdom.
Like it or not, friction is necessary to help connective tissue move, which can help muscles breathe a little easier.
Massage and soft-tissue therapy play beneficial roles in treating radial tunnel syndrome (RTS). It is essential to address the entire arm comprehensively.
By integrating movement into our therapy toolbox, we can help clients embrace the full potential of their evolutionary design.
We can help clients understand that pain indicates protection rather than damage.
Embrace the repetition that's at the heart of bodywork; then, reinvent each session depending on your client's needs.
Guiding clients through meditative visualization will help them reach a fully relaxed state and help their massage be most effective.
Oscillation can be a perfect beginning to a session with clients who struggle to let their guard down.
Scarring can hide the depth of an injury. Start with assessment to better understand that depth.
Identifying the variations of scapular dyskinesis can lead to the right treatment for shoulder impairment.
Graded exposure stretching works by systematically subjecting a client to their feared stimulus in a controlled manner, helping them break the cycle of avoidance and fear reinforcement.
Bodyworkers and hands-on therapists can play an important role in recognizing and addressing trauma.
When essential oils are combined properly and diluted in a massage lubricant, they can expand the effects of massage.
PowerFace is a protocol designed to add meaningful work to the face during massage sessions.
Working in a bioaquatic class brings a completely different somatic experience to clients and practitioners. And skills learned can translate to table work on land.
While we in the profession often refer to the therapist-client relationship, we need to remember that the connection is primarily human to human.
Expressing a genuine interest in the client's complaint is the first step to building trust between you and them. Knowing what information to delve into is part experience, part strategy.
Although there may be no way to completely relieve the existential pathos of aging and physical change, in our role as practitioners, we can be both companions and comforters to our clients who are experiencing physical and emotional loss.
Rolf Movement Integration practitioners are trained to work with a person's gravity response as the basis to evoke movement that is more effective and authentically expressive, uses less effort, minimizes counterproductive muscular contraction, and more.
By helping clients become more aware of how they move, the Feldenkrais Method provides powerful ways to support easier and better-organized movement and function.
Techniques that pin, twist, sling, and resist help clients engage with painful movement barriers by introducing novel stimuli that hold the brain's attention.
Great work necessitates mastering certain fundamentals, yet the result of all that work is something far greater.
A deep understanding of muscle function on the singular level can open your eyes to connections you haven't seen—connections that can mean the difference between satisfactory or exceptional relief for your clients.
While massage therapists do not perform diagnostic imaging, understanding its role and limitations in identifying rotator cuff pathologies can enhance client education and interprofessional communication.
Copers are people who can return to full activity after an ACL injury. ACL surgery is effective at reducing joint laxity; however, there is no difference in joint laxity between copers and noncopers. Noncopers can become copers through training, with proprioception, strength, and expectations about recovery being the most significant factors that distinguish copers from noncopers.
Massage therapists and bodyworkers can incorporate nerve mobilization methods with massage and other manual therapy techniques to help resolve common soft-tissue conditions like carpal tunnel, thoracic outlet syndrome, hip pain, and more.
When a stress response keeps firing day after day, it can affect vision in a way that leads to struggling to see and the typical response of eyestrain, eye tension, headaches, stiff neck, body aches, and more.
Dr. Joe Muscolino shares the manual therapy techniques he loves (and a few more that he doesn't).
Guiding clients toward discovering solutions for themselves is far more valuable than simply giving them the answers.
The power of thought is often overlooked in nervous system communication. Change comes when awareness is present within.
With about 30 muscles supporting the hand's ability to grip and grab, treating forearm issues can be a challenge.
Massage therapy alone can't fix bony misalignments, but it can help manage soft-tissue disorders and symptoms associated with valgus and varus alignments.
Encouraging the client to be part of the discovery process can help build the connection with the practitioner.
Ankles often get overlooked during a bodywork session in favor of the feet or calves, but giving attention to this complex area can provide more balance to the greater whole.
Sacroiliac joint (SIJ) mechanics indicate that therapists should take a holistic, movement-focused approach to SIJ pain.
By analyzing movement, you can determine where to focus your myofascial release on the held areas or your proprioceptive awareness work on the "forgotten" areas.
The beauty of applying the hill and valley approach to palpation of the hip flexor musculature is that the hip flexor muscles form an alternating contour of hill, valley, hill, valley, etc.
The benefits of decompression breathing are cumulative and exponential and flourish with a dedicated practice.
Finding new ways to press, squeeze, and glide can help reduce the repetitive-use injuries common for massage and bodywork practitioners. Consider experimenting with different combinations.
The sacroiliac joints (SIJs) move only slightly in the sagittal plane, but we can use this potential mobility to help with low-back, hip, gluteal, or pelvic pain, as well as pain or a feeling of stiffness in the SIJs themselves.
Validation is the first step in the healing process. As practitioners, we need to affirm that what people experience is real, even if we don't understand the origins of the pain.
ART—Asymmetry, Restriction of motion, and Tissue texture abnormalities—can aid MTs in identifying the imbalances that unravel the mystery of the client's symptoms.
The ladder of engagement system is valuable to help you move away from simple recipes and routines in your practice.
These five movements will address the most common musculoskeletal complaints by massage therapists. Do these before, between, or after sessions.
There are simple ways to help clients be more engaged, interested, and involved. Clients who know how to actively receive are great to work with and get even more out of their sessions.
The ever-present neural background noise most of us experience but are unaware of can contribute to a continual "threat-like" effect; massage can create a relaxing experience that dials down this noise.
Three nerves that have caused the author trouble over the years include the sciatic nerve, cervical root nerves, and the superior cluneal nerve. The myoskeletal techniques outlined here can help avoid unintentionally colliding with your clients' nerves.
The intimacy and personal connection of massage and bodywork can play a large part in the ability to nourish, comfort, and heal.
The sternum is a thick, strong bone that protects the heart from the outside world, but the sternum's strength can also limit, compress, and weigh heavily on the person it belongs to.
To protect the head when falling forward, one massively contracts the posterior muscles of the neck, which could lead to strain or injury in other areas.
There are several potential causes of plantar foot pain, including the most common, plantar fasciitis. Other nerve entrapment syndromes, such as tarsal tunnel syndrome, Morton's neuroma, and Baxter's neuropathy, can also cause plantar foot pain.
When we angle the palm by supinating or pronating the forearm, we can diminish the size of the palm contact, making it much more specific without being pokey the way thumb and finger pads can be.
Understanding the motor points of the neuromuscular system and their corollary—tonic acupressure points—increases efficiency in helping clients relax and deepen into a sense of calmness and well-being.
It is easy to underestimate the personal impact of the switch from "alleviator" to "afflicted" when we're dealing with our own injuries and physical challenges.
The application of opposing techniques within a short time frame brings the recipient into a deeper awareness of self and a greater perception of balance.
What happens with bones during a trauma is only one part of the picture. Sadly, the rest is often overlooked because you can't see it on a diagnostic image.
The modern habit of sitting for long periods of time has caused low-back pain to be a prevalent complaint among massage clients. Using Myoskeletal Alignment Techniques and deep squatting homework can reduce muscle imbalances related to back pain.
Incorporating massage therapy into a comprehensive treatment plan for lumbar disc and myofascial pain can help clients address overall low-back pain, gain greater freedom of movement, and get a better quality of life.
Massage cannot repair cartilage injuries, but it can be an excellent adjunct treatment that can ease pain, help prevent further complications, and lead to overall treatment success.
Pudendal nerve pain can sometimes be misdiagnosed as sacroiliac joint strain. A careful intake and assessment can help draw out the details needed to prepare an appropriate treatment plan.
Fascia is continuous throughout the body. When you engage it superficially by pushing on it, lifting it, lengthening it, etc., it affects the areas to which it extends without having to engage deeper tissues.
Incorporating self-care into daily life is an important task for career longevity.
Learn techniques and exercises to help strengthen, stretch, and activate the muscles in your hands.
Author David M. Lobenstein believes MTs can effect the most positive change for their clients when they feel good during the session.
There are so many categories of soft-tissue dysfunctions, we cannot expect to know them all. But let's learn a few common soft-tissue injuries and how to approach.
Shoulder pain and stiffness are common upper extremity complaints. Interestingly, recent research indicates mechanical impingement may not be the primary cause of pain in some cases. So what's the cause?
Have you ever noticed your fingers cramping or forearms slipping along the client's skin when attempting to apply deep-tissue techniques? Here we'll deconstruct a few hand and forearm maneuvers.
Every session holds the promise of a lesson to be learned from every client encounter. One of the most powerful opportunities for deepening our understanding comes from the questions clients may ask.
One of the beautiful aspects of being a massage therapist is having the freedom to find your personal style in the delivery of your hands-on work.
Empaths are able to create nurturing environments for clients due to their innate sensitivity to energy. Without words, they're able to soothe the unspoken anxieties of those around them. While empathy is a gift, it is not without its shadow side.
As a massage therapist, you probably learned at some point that if you are really present when you work, your work will be worlds better.
One of the more debilitating hand conditions is trigger finger or thumb. Trigger finger can be incapacitating and painful. It can also be the result of another systemic problem.
Each of us has a toolbox packed with assessments and techniques for treating clients with various pain complaints. Using clinical reasoning, we can evaluate these practices and apply them effectively. Put simply, clinical reasoning is the process by which a therapist interacts with a client.
Forward head posture is the name given to a sagittal-plane postural distortion pattern in which the head is held forward. Here we'll explore causes and how the context of FHP can inform our massage therapy.
Meralgia paresthetica can present as a case of mistaken identity.
Why don't more practitioners incorporate joint movement into sessions? Here, we will explore the benefits and effects of these techniques.
If your clients have the winter blahs, help them rekindle that summer feeling with aromas recommendations.
In massage school, we are taught to use all the parts of our hands. The thumbs, the fingers, the palms, the knuckles—use them all, and save yourself from breakdown. It has been a mantra I have employed throughout the years to keep my own body healthy and safe.
Trigger points, hypertonicity, strains, sprains, and a host of other complaints are all common causes of low-back pain. In this column, we'll look at cluneal nerve entrapment.
There are many massage modalities that help improve posture—graded exposure stretching is one of them. But a technique Erik Dalton calls "Spindle-Stim" can also be a valuable tool.
Some muscles tend to fire way more than we ask them to. And getting those spotlight hogs to step aside is a good chunk of what we do as bodyworkers.
Increased understanding of the biomechanics of the sacroiliac joint have led to a re-evaluation of traditional approaches to treating SI joint dysfunction.
Occupational and recreational activities can lead to cumulative trauma disorders: tissue damage resulting from repetitive demand over the course of time.
Attentive listening means being fully present, using all five senses, and coming from a place of wanting to authentically understand someone else. When a client feels heard, they feel more at ease.
Though it may feel uncomfortable at first to receive feedback from a client, it is important to teach them that it's not only OK, but encouraged to ensure they get the massage experience they're seeking.
Taking a "learn something" approach to a client's treatment reflects a true partnership between therapist and client, and creates the potential for both personal and professional growth.
Joint mobility is important for the entire body, but perhaps even more so for the shoulder joint.
Performing massage while seated—and applying proper body mechanics—can extend your massage career.
Thinking about ribs as parts of larger rings that include the spine and sternum can clarify the complexity of the rib cage's many details. And assessing rib-ring mobility can help us determine where to work.
Involving the client in treatment approaches can produce better outcomes, while also increasing their sense of empowerment and self-efficacy.
As massage therapists, the fear of any injury—especially overuse injuries—is always in the back of our minds. One way to combat injuries is to strengthen our muscles by lifting weights.
Touch is something that we, as massage therapists, do so often it is easy to forget how powerful it is for the client.
Charting involves keeping a clinical record of the important details and facts about a client session, specifically a problem-focused session. Here we'll review the what, the why, and the how of SOAPs.
Grounding, breathwork, presence, intention—these are all tools in the bodyworker's toolkit, practices that often separate the satisfying session from the spectacular.
I am fascinated with the similarities of how our physical tissues operate with the workings of our inner, more emotional selves. Here, we'll look at what happens to the fascial network in relation to the nervous system.
Wrist and distal forearm pain complaints from overuse are increasingly common. Let's take a look at two key chronic overuse tendon disorders of the wrist and distal forearm.
Implementing eye-contact techniques like eye gazing within your practice is one of the best investments you will ever make.
Til Luchau and Whitney Lowe speak with manual therapist, physiotherapist, and researcher Mark Bishop about his research on clients' expectations. Read takeaways in this column.
Angie Parris-Raney, LMT, guides us in chair yoga incorporating the Dirga deep-breathing technique.
When clients present with a range of symptoms, we attempt to make sense of all the information they reveal with a model of understanding that makes the pieces fit together.
How often do you bring breathwork into your practice? How often do you bring it into your life? Perhaps a reminder of the benefits of this simple practice will encourage you to start.
What is critical thinking? Learn how to think about thinking, from the perspective of philosophers, researchers, clients...and massage therapists.
Every therapist I know sincerely wants to help their clients feel better, whether the treatment is geared toward relaxation or a specific injury or pain. Unfortunately, in my work as an expert witness, I have seen many cases of well-meaning therapists who have injured their clients. Here's how to prevent that.
Pregnancy is one of life's most precious—and most stressful—opportunities. So where does pregnancy stress originate? How does it affect pregnancy outcomes?
Learn about and explore the muscles that keep our abdomen engaged, including the serratus and intercostals, and a technique called proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation.
Outlining a few techniques to free up the tissues with symptoms associated with tendinopathies in the buttocks, including piriformis syndrome, gemelli-obturator internus syndrome, ischial tunnel syndrome, and greater trochanteric pain syndrome.
Massage and bodywork practitioners are getting older, just as the nation as a whole is getting older. Read our conversation with massage and bodywork pioneer Art Riggs on topics like physical activity, massage, and aging.
Using verbal cues while the client is in a relaxed state and open to suggestion can lead clients in pain to favorably reinterpret the nociceptive (danger-signaling) input.
After a full day working with clients, massage therapists can develop their own sore, stiff muscles. Using a foam roller before and after a workday can help alleviate some of those pains.
Therapeutic friction offers many benefits, such as increasing local circulation, breaking up tissue, and stimulating nerve fibers.
Kinesiology tape uses medical-grade adhesive to create a microscopic space between the skin and the tissues underneath it, influencing the movement of fluids in the dermal and superficial fascia layers.
Ligaments are dense connective tissue structures composed of elastin that provides a degree of pliability and flexibility, and collagen that gives the tissue tensile strength.
Many autistic people do not see autism as a condition to be cured, but as an aspect of identity. Integrative health care and massage specifically have shown promising evidence of reducing autistic anx
When you understand the context that created a problem, then you can work to solve it.
Shifting the way you talk to yourself (especially in challenging situations) precedes successful communication with others.
Overactivity and excessive mechanical load are the leading causes of patellofemoral pain syndrome. Massage can play a role in treating patellar tracking disorders, especially in reducing hypertonicity
The quadratus lumborum and psoas muscles are antagonistic yet have an interesting codependent dynamic.
Coccygeal pain is often caused by an unstable coccyx, resulting in chronic inflammation of the sacrococcygeal joint. Massage therapy can be used as a conservative treatment.
The Parietal Technique deeply quiets and calms the autonomic nervous system, and so is indicated for agitation, headaches, or neck pain.
