Want to trash your back? Do massage in the same body position (static posture massage) day in day out.

It’s easy to get stuck doing that. You come out of massage school green.

You start cutting your teeth at a spa or chiro’s office. As you gain confidence you develop your way of doing massage.

Massage life is good–until one day when your back hurts. A month later it still hurts.

Now what? Change the way you do massage?

No way. Quality of work would suffer, right?

There’s another way to approach this. Instead of changing your way of doing massage, tweak it.

To explain what I mean I need to circle back to static posture.

What is it?

Static Posture

It’s a fixed body position.

Think hairstylists, dentists, mechanics, data entry workers, and us, massage therapists.

The problem occurs when you’re in a fixed position for extended periods of time while you’re physically exerting yourself.

Why is that bad?

Because protracted  static posture increases loads or forces on muscles and tendons in specific areas. When this happens fatigue occurs in these areas because blood flow is impeded. When blood flow is impeded there’s less replenishing of nutrients and elimination of metabolic waste. In other words, tissue recovery is not good.

It’s a perfect set up for back pain.

Now think about your way of doing massage. Seeing some static posture moments?

Time to make some adjustments.

The Tweaks

For office workers, adjustments are fairly easy. You get up from your desk and walk around every hour or so to give your desk muscles a break.

But you can’t exactly do that in a massage, right?

Hey, be back in 5. Why don’t you finish up your feet for me while I’m gone. Cream’s on the stool.

But you can change positions so that you’re not in the static posture massage cycle throughout most of the massage.

Here’s a common static posture in massage.

Hunching with head down.

So how I can I interrupt this static posture massage cycle without rewriting how I do massage?

One way is to find times during the massage when you can change your back position. Here are some examples:

1. Take a knee on the table when standing and working on feet.

2. Sit and lean whenever possible.

3. Massage with one hand so that you can straighten up.

And stretch if you want to.

One-handed massage is one to challenge your old habit of hunching. Try other ways to…

4. Get vertical during the massage.

Here’s how I do that: Advanced Massage Body Mechanics: Get Vertical.

We Got It Good

Can you imagine a dentist experimenting with different ways of standing or sitting while working?

That’s called a lawsuit.

A dentist can’t avoid static postures if she wants to get the job done safely and effectively.

But for a MT, static posture is a habit.

Break the habit.

Save your back by looking for times when you can get out of your normal massage position and still do your job effectively.

Can you massage pain-free?

Yes.

And you can get CEU credits.

Take the pain quiz.

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