As we continue to navigate the pandemic, massage therapists have had time to think about their practices, their clients, and how they can best take care of them both while also taking care of themselves. Part of this inventory might include taking a closer look at the techniques you most readily turn to when helping people manage pain, stress, anxiety, chronic conditionsβany number of things. For those massage therapists who regularly work with clients who request or need deeper massage to get relief, you know how taxing deep tissue massage can be on your body.
Now is a good time to assess how often you are doing deep tissue work, as well as ways you might more actively protect your hands, wrists and joints. The pain caused by those and other conditions can be felt in both the body and in the bank account: Some of the injuries that can afflict massage therapists are career-ending, which means LMTs who do deep work must be extra vigilant about self-care and recognizing when they need to adjust their repertoire.
For massage therapists who have clients who value and benefit from deep-tissue work, exploring ways they can get some of the same results without undue stress on their bodies and joints is key to career longevity. Some veteran massage therapists explain that if you make smart, strategic changes to the way you give deep-tissue massagesβand to how you care for your body in between themβyour clients and your business can continue to benefit from deep work for years and even decades to come.
The cardinal sin of deep-tissue massage is using the upper body to deliver the pressure, according to massage therapist Melissa Cope, LMBT, of Asheville, North Carolina. Then I let go. I stabilize my joints and I drop my weight. I let gravity do as much work as possible. The key is stacking your joints.
That height can change with every client, and it is difficult to manually adjust a table for each session. Van Antwerp achieves deep-tissue results with light and medium touch by embracing a slower, more deliberate massage tempo. In other words, you can alleviate pain by manipulating muscles not just physically, but also physiologicallyβi. Instead of gliding across the surface of the skin, I plant the heel of my hand or my fingers in a spot, and then do some sort of subtle vibration to gently tease the muscle fibers apart rather than forcing them.
