As much as we would all love to have a massage every week to keep us balanced and moving well…realistically life gets in the way. Often people come in when they have a specific pain or issue that needs working on, they may be confused when treatment focus isn’t entirely on the area they asked to be treated.
If you walk in to a holistic therapists room and say I have pain and tension between my shoulder blades, or in my lower back…would you expect a treatment where they massage, or put needles, or cups directly on, and only on the area that you are struggling with? Our bodies are more complex than this, tension in one area is often caused by the pull from other locked up areas, or off balance because the opposing force is weak and not helping to hold things in the right place.
With most issues relating to pain and stiffness, the best approach is to go for a full body massage, this will help to track down any areas which may be affecting your structure and bring you in to better balance. Even in a shorter, back massage i would include more than just your back….
For shoulder pain I will always include some work to stretch the arms and open the upper chest, loosen the ribs, relax the diaphragm and work on the neck from both the front and the back.
For lower back pain, often hip stretches and mobilisations will be included, again, ribs and neck will need to be loosened and the abdominal muscles should be worked on
This may seem like time which could be better spent on the area that hurts, but often these areas are not to root of the problem, all of your structures are held in place by a balanced system, if one side is off balance, the other will feel the effects. take for example the pain and ache you feel between your shoulder blades after sitting at the desk or driving all day, the issue here is that the muscles in your chest have been pulled forward and held still for too long, your posture as the day went on has probably hunched forwards, shortening the muscles around your sternum, and creating tension in your ribs/ diaphragm and scrunching up your organs. This posture is not balanced or comfortable, so the posterior muscles have to work hard to pull against stiff, tied up muscles which don’t relax easily because they have been held still for too long so they are struggling to relax.
You are feeling the strain of your posterior muscles trying to correct the issue, working on them directly is a helpful part of the process but done on its own will only give you short term relief. Working on opening up the chest and ribs will allow them to relax back to a natural posture, taking the strain off the posterior muscles, making your treatment more effective and longer lasting.
This is one of the reasons I lean towards longer treatments, an hour is great for a back massage because it allows time to work on the area that is giving you issues and the areas which will be pulling against your problem area. For a full body treatment 90 mins or longer is recommended. It is also worth considering that if you are making time in your busy schedule for some well deserved re-balancing, you may as well do it right. A longer treatment will allow you to relax in to your treatment, while you relax it give me time to stretch out and relax all of those imbalances which are pulling on your web of connective tissue.
A 3 hour treatment, allowing you to relax deeply and get everything unwound every month or 6 weeks has been shown to be more effective and less costly than an hour treatment every week, and its usually easier to fit in to your schedule too. Booking in for that regular long treatment, even once every other month will help to maintain that whole body balance, preventing the build up of tight and tired muscles.
Get your body- reboot treatment booked in for a regular appointment in your diary, taking care of yourself gives you more time, energy and patience for whatever life sends your way.
The Barefoot therapist 