Deep Tissue Massage: What’s All About

The techniques and different emphasis of these deep tissue methods may offer a profound reorientation in the way you work. You may find that the emphasis upon patiently lengthening tissue will empower you to achieve goals with your clients that were inconceivable before.
The alleviation of pain, bringing about better posture, more flexibility, and fluid movement—these are all potential goals that are possible to achieve with deep tissue skills. Whatever the emphasis, it is hoped that the techniques learned in this manual will be useful to a wide range of therapists as they tailor this knowledge to their own individual definition of massage.

To increase your deep tissue skills? Check out the requirements for employment in most spas and medical settings such as chiropractors’ offices or physical therapy clinics. Most of these now require a deep tissue certificate. Massage is no longer looked at as an indulgence to be appreciated by a few people who have excess time or money. Now that the medical community is finally recognizing the benefit of massage as an effective treatment for a whole range of complaints, deep tissue skills are becoming a required prerequisite even to apply for a job. Insurance companies even distinguish between generic massage and “Myofascial Release” or “Soft Tissue Mobilization” (insurance-speak for Deep Tissue Massage) by paying for these services at a higher rate. As private clients become more sophisticated, they too are requiring these skills in your private practice.

In the years that I have taught Deep Tissue Massage, therapists have listed many reasons for taking the course. A large number come because they are injured—they have worked too hard; they have worked too fast; they have used improper posture and biomechanics. Home massage London therapists should be careful. They have tried to force and control their clients’ tissue with agendas that are in conflict with the realities of human physiology. They may have given their clients’ needs preference over their own. Most often, as their knowledge of the human body grows and their skills become more sophisticated, they realize how much more there is to know about bodywork and want to be more effective and better at what they do.

In the yin/yang of safety versus overly aggressive treatment. The best advice is never to perform any stroke or procedure unless you know that it is totally safe and feel confident about what you are doing. However, just as the Chinese character for danger also means opportunity, zones where Deep Tissue Massage could adversely impact nerves or circulation are also areas where massage can free adhesions or impingements and provide significant improvement. Indiscriminate erring too much on the side of caution may be performing a well-meaning disservice to your clients, which can be simply resolved by an educated confidence in your knowledge of potential danger areas.

In beginning massage classes it is impossible to teach how to work carefully around certain structures until a certain level of expertise has been gained. The warnings not to work in the anterior neck, the abdomen and inguinal triangle, and around certain arteries, veins, and superficial nerves are well advised for a beginning student. However, there is a large difference between not working at all or only superficially in an area and learning in more advanced classes how to work safely in the same area.