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ABMP Podcasts for Massage Therapists & Bodyworkers

Image of microphones on booms with the ABMP Podcast App Icon overlaid on the left side

 

Exploring the issues and challenges unique to the massage and bodywork community.

Subscribe to The ABMP Podcast in the Apple Podcast Store, Google Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you access your favorite podcasts, or click on an episode below to listen online.

Send questions, topic ideas, and guest recommendations to podcast@abmp.com, and we may answer your question on a future podcast.

 


How can we reverse the growing trends of disconnection to forge meaningful connections in business and life? In this episode of The ABMP Podcast, Kristin and Darren are joined by Susan McPherson, author of The Lost Art of Connecting: The Gather, Ask, Do Method for Building Meaningful Business Relationships. Susan discusses the difference between connecting and networking, going from FOMO to JOMO, the importance of being a good listener, and how technology plays a role in deeper connections.

A client has a neuromuscular disorder that causes prolonged, painful neck spasms. Her treatment led to some further complications. Can massage therapy help? Not only is the answer yes, but in this episode our contributor gives us a pretty detailed idea of what she did, and how things went. Hmmm, all the key pieces of a case report!

In this episode of The ABMP Podcast, Kristin and Darren are joined by David Palmer, commonly referred to as the “father of contemporary chair massage.” David discusses what his “aha” moment was when developing seated massage, where the chair massage routine was born out of, keys to success for practitioners, and what the future of chair massage holds.

After a lifetime of chronic coughing and throat-clearing, a client is diagnosed with congenital glottic stenosis, and is hoping to have surgery to correct it. Is there a role for massage therapy in this process? This turns out to be a very relevant question for this moment, as acquired glottic stenosis is a fairly frequent complication of being on a ventilator.

Heath and Nicole Reed started off like many of us—falling in love with bodywork while in massage school, then having to juggle all the jobs to stay afloat. But they quickly figured out that by incorporating loving kindness into their own lives, their growth extended far beyond the personal level.

In this episode of The ABMP Podcast, Kristin and Darren are joined by Cal Cates to discuss what it means to stay resilient with masking practices, understanding “mask fatigue” and “COVID fatigue,” why the mask you are wearing is the right mask to wear, and how high-risk individuals are more common than you would think.

A mature woman has new hip and groin pain when she picks up and carries her toddler granddaughter. Her doctor diagnoses femoroacetabular impingement, and approves the idea of massage. Femoroacetabular impingement? What is that? And is massage therapy appropriate?

In this episode of The ABMP Podcast, Kristin and Darren are joined by Dr. Ellen Vora to discuss something we all do as human beings—sleep. But are we doing it correctly? Dr. Vora discusses the dos and don’ts to successful sleep, how temperature and darkness affect our sleep habits, why blue spectrum light is especially bad for our sleep health, and why some of us wake up in the middle of the night (and why it’s not a bad thing).

A client had three major cardiac surgeries within a month. Now, several weeks later, she still has numbness in her legs. What in the world is going on? And can massage help? Join me for a search for how cardiac surgery and nerve damage intersect, and hear what happens for this lucky client!

Any muscle that is named after a geometric shape is bound to have issues. For the rhomboids, this shows up in the same way that a people pleaser tends to spread themselves too thin. They always want to give and don’t have the easiest time receiving. 

In this episode of The ABMP Podcast, Darren and Kristin sit down with Qiana Thompson to discuss how she cracked the code to a six-figure practice by being herself, becoming a business consultant to help a new generation of massage therapists gain clarity, and how she helps others reimagine their business to reflect their vision and values.

I’ve seen several requests for guidance about working with clients who have Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS) lately. This genetic connective tissue disease creates symptoms that look like ordinary musculoskeletal injuries, but they’re not—this is why some doctors call people with EDS their “zebra patients”—as in, these hoofbeats are zebras, not horses.