You have 8 hours of massage to do. And your last 3 are deep tissue. How do you make the last massage as good as the first? You get hyper-efficient with how you do your work (hyper-efficient massage).
But before you can do hyper-efficient massage, we need to talk about just doing massage efficiently.
I use two categories to explain massage efficiency: (1) work and (2) rest/recovery.
And you’re probably thinking resting while doing massage is called napping, Mark.
Well, resting while doing massage is close to napping, but not quite. We’ll get into that in a minute.
Let’s start with working efficiently.
Working Efficiently
Working efficiently means that you’re maximizing your productivity with minimum wasted effort.
Here’s how I do the work part of massage effortlessly:
- Lean for medium to deep pressure.
I use a lock, stack and lean technique for medium to deep pressure. You can read more about that here.
- Keep the feet moving.
If you’re not moving your feet to get into the proper position to lean, your work will become harder because you won’t be able to efficiently transfer your body weight onto the client. Here’s how I move my feet:
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omwk-NyVjZU[/embedyt]
There’s more, but if you do these 2 things–lean and move your feet–you’re gonna be pretty efficient.
And that will get you through the first 5 massages of your 8-hour massage day.
Then walks in Hour 6, and Hour 6 wants a deep tissue massage.
What usually happens next?
Your brain hurts and your body is tired and your form starts slipping, right?
But this is precisely the time that you can’t give into fatigue. You must get hyper-efficient (be even more efficient than you were for the first 5 hours).
Working Hyper-Efficiently
How’s that going to happen when I’m ready to fall on my face, Mark?
You’re going to talk yourself into hyper-efficiency.
“Move your feet, buddy.”
“Come on now, stop reaching.”
“You got this…fifteen more minutes to go…relax your shoulders….”
As you talk to yourself you start to become acutely aware of every move you make. With this new, laser focus on form you can correct any sloppiness that has occurred because of fatigue and you can take it a step further by removing all inefficiencies that were getting past your radar when you were less tired (massages 1 – 5 of the day).
Now the work gets easier again and you can fight off the droopy feeling.
But that’s only half of what you’ll need to know to be 100% hyper-efficient.
Here’s the first step of the other half: You need to be efficient at resting/recovering while doing a massage.
Resting Efficiently
How do you rest during a massage?
- Take a seat.
- Rest your arms on your legs when sitting.
- Relax (instead of tightening up) into the lean.
And you can give your overworked postural muscles a break by doing this;
- Get upright.
- Lean against the table.
Do these things to get through the first 5 massages.
Then become hyper-efficient with relaxing to conquer hours 6, 7 and 8.
Resting Hyper-Efficiently
How?
Turn “resting” up a notch.
Look for every opportunity where you can sit, lean into the table and get vertical.
When you do, you’ll find more opportunities than you had thought were available. Jump on these opportunities and you’re body and brain will thank you.
Here’s the short version.
Hyper-Efficient Massage in a Nutshell
Massage hours 1 -5: Be efficient with work and rest.
Hours 6 – 8: Be hyper-efficient with work and rest.
When fatigue moves in, talk yourself into hyper-efficiency.
Then you’ll start to see when body mechanic errors are creeping in and when you’re missing resting opportunities.
Make the corrections and rest like you’ve never rested before.
Being hyper-efficient will not only make your last massage as good as your first, it will also make you realize that you can handle much more than you had thought:-)
Want to make sure that you can do a lot of massage and not be in pain?
Check out Delivering Deep Pressure Without Hurting Yourself.
It’s a 3 CEU, online, home-study course. It has all the strategies and techniques that allow me to work 6 to 8 hour days.
