6 Massage Techniques That Therapists Learn

If you are interested in different types of massage techniques you can make a career out of it too by becoming a massage therapist. The ability to help someone in the healing process to relieve their pain can make you feel good about yourself as well. If you have soft hands or have been told by numerous people about how your hands are perfect for massages, you can learn a few different techniques to master this art. You can also make a career out of it.

Learning techniques that massage schools teach their under-training massage therapists are very important and can be learned for various purposes. Even if you are not making massage therapy your career, you can still learn to take better care of people around you by different forms of massages. Massages of these kinds can be used to treat different ailments and pain; they are also very soothing for a stressful person giving them a calm experience.

Knowledge about all the available massage techniques is important before you can go into detail about these techniques. Such knowledge will also help people understand what massage therapy they need from a therapist themselves.

Following are some of the different massage techniques that are often used by massage therapists.

Basic massage techniques

Learning basic massage techniques is very important and that is where one should always start during their massage therapist training. Knowing the basics will help you a lot in learning some of the other techniques as well. When it comes to the basics there are four main techniques that are used for massage therapy. These techniques are described below:

  • Effleurage is a stroking technique. This type of massage is meant for you to relax your muscles and it also helps release any tension from the muscles.
  • Petrissage is a massage technique that helps in situations like muscle cramps. This is the kneading motion that involves pulling the muscle away from the bone. Therefore relieving your muscles from that cramps. This type of massage technique might hurt a bit in between the session but that is all the pain that you will have to experience. Learning this technique carefully is very important because the comfort of your patient is really crucial.
  • Tapotement as the name indicates is the massage technique that involves tapping. This may also include the cupping motion for your muscles. This type of massage is not suitable for people with different medical problems and is great for people with good muscle mass like a sportsperson.
  • Friction is basically for some of the specific spots in your muscles. This will help release the tension in the muscles when a specific muscle point is massaged in a circular motion.
Basic massage techniques

All these strokes act as the basic knowledge in all the other different massage techniques as well.

Swedish massage techniques

Swedish massage is one of the best basic massage techniques. It is very popular in the western world as well. This massage technique was introduced in the 1800s by a physiology professor Per Henrik Ling in Stockholm. It is a mixture of the basic massage techniques involving all the strokes that you have learned so far.

This massage technique is very easy to learn and a gateway to start your massage therapy practice. In this massage technique, the therapist will use the effleurage strokes to massage the tender muscles. Moreover the petrissage technique will be used to ease the tension from the muscles. The vibration strokes and tapotement will help with some of the pain and tension release from the muscles as well. Friction is given when the circular motion with your thumbs and fingers help easing out the tension from the specific spots of your muscles.

Trigger point massage

Trigger point massage is needed when there is a knot in your muscles and this term is used by most people. Usually what happens is that myofacial is a soft tissue that surrounds the muscle and when the tension in the muscle increases this sift tissue may tear or rip.

In the healing process, this tissue will connect with the other closest tissue making you feel the tension in your muscles known as a knot in your muscles. When you massage that trigger point you will be increasing the circulation in that area. This will make sure that your muscle heals faster. This massage technique along with similar massage techniques will remove the tension from the muscle and avoid any type of pinching movement for the nerves in the surrounding area.

Deep tissue massage techniques

The deep tissue massage technique is one of the massage techniques that should be done by people with some better knowledge of different massage techniques. It should be done by well-trained people. This type of massage technique is for people with pain in the deeper muscles.

For this type of massage technique the massage therapist should have more knowledge about the muscles and how much pressure should be applied. You have to give deeper strokes. Moreover in this massage friction strokes are needed. For such a technique, you need to have a deeper knowledge of myology. This therapy is usually done for the athletes and for the pope who has gone through some muscle injury.

Neuromuscular massage

Neuromuscular massage is also like deep tissue massage. Both these techniques use the same approach of targeting the deeper muscles. Where in the deep tissue massage technique you target the muscles that are deeper and tough to reach. In the neuromuscular massage technique, the target is usually an individual muscle. These neuromuscular massage techniques will target the specific points to ease out the neuromuscular pain.

Sports massage techniques

Sports massage techniques should be for the sportsperson. These massage techniques will help the athletes with pain relief after an injury and relief of muscle tension after the game and warm up before the game. This can help athletes not only recover from the muscle injuries faster but also with the tension in the muscles to avoid any form of such injury, to begin with. This massage technique involves strokes that will change as per the need of the athlete. That’s a decision to be made by the massage therapist. Swedish and shiatsu massage techniques might be used to ensure that the athlete’s muscles are relaxed and stretched before and after the game.

Thai massage

Thai massage is a type of massage where the client’s body is stretched and the few pressure points are stroked. The massage therapist will stretch the body of clients by helping them in different poses. To do so the massage therapist may need to use elbows, knees, and body along with their hands to help the client achieve those poses.

This type of massage will help the client increase the flexibility in their body and also help them to relax. Such massage may also be recommended for people with back problems so their body can be stretched and relaxed.

So, these are all the main massage techniques that a massage therapist usually learns to do. Some of the massage techniques might be even the requirement of your work and the type of clientele. You can get training on all these techniques to become a good and certified massage therapist. Learning the basics is most important for a massage therapist and the rest of the massage techniques you can learn along the way during your practising years.

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  1. Pingback: Best Neck and Shoulder Massager for Pain Relief - Health Linear

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