Posted by:
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 different levels of sensitivity to pressure and it’s always important to check in ...
Continue Reading →Posted by:
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 favorites. You develop a level of comfort and expertise with them, and you ...
Posted by:
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 to ask yourself: are you massaging the whole muscle?
I find that, a ...
Continue Reading →Posted by:
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 to jump to conclusions as to the culprit of the client’s pain. It’s ...
Posted by:
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.
Continue Reading →I have a chronically unhappy left shoulder due to car accident that I was in over a decade ago. My ...
Posted by:
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 that you keep the client in the loop and ...
Continue Reading →Posted by:
Are you looking to build your client base? When you already have some happy clients returning to see you, but you still have lots of empty slots in your appointment book, the best way to fill those empty slots is through the slots that are already filled. One of the easiest, but most overlooked marketing tips of all is to turn to those clients who are already ...
Posted by:
One of the most challenging things for a lot of therapists can be finding themselves in an intake with a new client where the connection just isn’t happening. Maybe they look at their shoes the whole time, or they’re sighing and looking out the window. You know, no click. It takes a real dedication to our profession, and a certain level of maturity, to be able ...
Posted by:
Massage therapy can be a very fulfilling career, but it can unfortunately end up being a short one for many of us. That’s because certain energetic self-care is absolutely indispensable, but often overlooked. Most of us who practice massage find a way to mind our body dynamics, but do we take care to maintain good hygiene needed to keep our ‘energetic field’ clean?
The same openness and ...
Posted by:
Beware the dreaded hangnail that subtly, but painfully lacerates an invisible path through your client’s skin! Of course, we’ve heard about it, or maybe even experienced it (ouch!), but no it’s never happened to us; we’ve never been the perpetrator of the hangnail crime. At least, we think we haven’t..
Fingernails, like hair, have no nerves. So, unless we check—or have a client willing to object, which ...
Continue Reading →