The Secret Weapon That Will Save Your Back: Your Massage Table

 

I love my massage table.

I know that sounds a little strange, but I have a good reason to love my massage table.

My massage table saved my massage career.

Here’s the short version.

Saving My Massage Career

A while back I stressed my shoulders doing massage in an attempt to save my neck and elbow.

Then to save my shoulders, I stressed my back.

At that point I was feeling mighty low and about ready to quit massage because no matter what I did something always hurt.

But then I discovered a cool thing about my massage table.

I could lean into it. 

When I did my back got happy AND I was able to use the strategies that saved my shoulders, elbow and neck once again.

Why did my back get happy?

Because it didn’t have to work as hard to keep me upright and it could unbend from the typical massage-hunchback position.

In a minute I’m going to show you how to lean into the table to save your back (and shoulders and neck).

But before I do that I want to give you a framework for leaning.

So, I’ll start from the beginning.

How My Massage Table Saved My Massage Career

My daddy was born into a family of sharecroppers living in the rolling hills of Harrisonburg Virginia…haha…not that far back.

At one point in my massage career I was diagnosed with Cubital Tunnel Syndrome, cervical radiculopathy and an shoulder instability.

Every time I did massage something hurt and the pain wasn’t going away.

So I threw myself into an experiment to save my massage career. 

My Experiment

I had three rules for the experiment.

1. Figure out what triggered or caused me pain in the massage room.

2. Stop doing the the things that triggered/caused pain.

3. Find alternatives to get the job done.

The first thing I went to work on was my elbow pain (Cubital Tunnel Syndrome),

To be honest, it was sometimes hard to differentiate between the pain coming from my neck (cervical radiculopathy) and pain coming from my elbow.

But one thing for sure triggered both–using my forearms to massage.

So, out went forearms.

That stunk because they were a big part of my deep pressure work.

Hmm…what could replace my forearms.

I tried fists.

But when I used my fists at my normal table height I had to really engage my upper body and I ended up tweaking my unstable shoulder.

Now what? Knees? Believe me, I thought about it for a second.

But lucky for me I was already familiar with leaning (using my body weight to generate pressure).

In fact, leaning was core to my forearm work…

…and massage tool work, too.

So, now I just needed to lower the table far enough so that I could lean with my body weight using my fists.

And that’s precisely what I did.

It worked like a charm.

There was no strain in my upper-body because my body weight was doing the work.

My shoulders and neck liked that.

However, not all my body parts were happy.

My back started to bother me from working on a low table, especially when the client required less pressure (light to medium).

Less pressure meant that I couldn’t lean all my body weight onto the client so my back and legs had to do more work. 

Because I was on a mission to massage efficiently and effectively (aka, to be lazy and expend the least amount of energy as possible) without being in pain, it wasn’t long before my leg found the side of the massage table.

The leg against the table provided extra support.

That meant less work for my back to do and, ultimately, it allowed me to change positions so that I wasn’t in the  massage-hunchback position all the time.

Leaning into the massage table has become a central feature to my body mechanics, so much so that if you randomly pulled the massage table away from me when I was standing during a massage, I would fall on my face 90% of the time.

Here’s what you need to know to experiment with leaning into the massage table.

1. You can lean into the massage table for support with all sides of your legs (front, back, side, inside).

It doesn’t take much leaning to provide enough support to be able to get you out of massage hunchback.

Here I’m leaning into the table using the inside of my left leg.

In this next picture I’m leaning into the table with the side of my leg.

Here’s classic leaning into the front of a leg.

And here’s what you’ve been waiting for: Leaning into the back of a leg(s).

2. Think plank when leaning into the table for deeper pressure.

Deeper pressure is going to require more weight onto the client rather than onto the table.

So you’re contact leg that’s leaning into the table is going to help stabilize your “planking”.

Don’t worry about getting more vertical when leaning and doing deep pressure.

Here’s what leaning into the table delivering deep pressure looks like:

3. Straighten up and change back positions with light to medium pressure and/or when using one hand to massage.

For light to medium pressure my stances widen because I don’t want to transfer all of my body weight onto the client.

The combination of not needing to exert a lot of pressure and having the support of the table is the perfect opportunity for me to unbend my back.

Time for a Change?

As you can tell by now, I’m a very lazy creature when it comes to working in the massage room.

I want a workout in the gym to feel like a workout in the gym.

And I want the work I do in my massage room NOT to feel like a workout in the gym.

That’s why I’m addicted to leaning.

To find more about doing massage effortlessly check out Minimal Effort Massage. 

And if you’re ready to jump into massaging pain-free, here’s the online, home-study course (3 CEUs) that will get the job done: How to do Deep Pressure Without Hurting Yourself.

The course is based off my real-life experiment of overcoming career-ending conditions in the massage room.

Lean on.