Massage Montage

Even the most professional massage therapists can get tired or sore hands.  The main reason for this is the over use of their thumbs.  I’m going to tell you some ways to avoid this so that you can give longer and frankly, better massages.

When you’re giving a massage, especially a neck or foot massage, the tendency is to use your thumbs.  This makes sense, they are a more powerful digit and thumbs can get a lot of leverage. But if you overuse your thumbs then you get what we massage therapists call “blown out thumbs.” Not a pretty site…actually it just hurts.  Anyway, in order to avoid that, use your knuckles, your fists, your elbow, or if you’re really good, use your knees. These different body parts are called “tools” in the massage community. So you will be learning how to use different tools to perform a massage.

Use your pointer finger and middle fingers knuckles together to pinpoint areas were your had used your thumb.  You will want to keep your fingers close together much like the picture to the left in order to get the desired strength. When using your knuckles, make sure that you keep your wrist in the same line as your arm.  You need to do this for two reasons, the first is the strength behind what you are doing and the second is that you want hurt your wrist this way.

You will want to use your knuckles on the bottom of the feet and the neck when doing a massage.  You can use your knuckles when doing a back massage, but it can be difficult to do without hurting your wrist.

Okay, I think that you get the point when it comes to the knuckles. Now lets focus on the fist.  Once again keep the fist in the same  line as the arm…for the same reasons as the knuckles.  The fist can be used during a back, neck or foot massage.  The fist can be used for making broad strokes or using the largest knuckle on the top of the fist to rotate on a spot.

Look closely at the picture, that is the proper way to use the elbow. You don’t put pressure directly on the point of the elbow, you apply pressure just behind the point.  Also, when doing a back massage beginners and professionals alike should trace in front of the elbow and go slowly on the back. The elbow is the strongest of the three tools because you can put your body weight behind it therefore you need to move slowly in order to not hurt the person you are massaging.

As for the knee….that’s a bit beyond basic…but I promise we’ll get to it one of these days.

I hope you found this informative. Please feel free to ask me any questions that come to mind as you are reading. Good luck on your massage!