Massage School Directory

Top Ten Massage Techniques

From Care2.com

1. SWEDISH MASSAGE uses soothing, tapping and kneading strokes to work the entire body, relieving muscle tension and loosening sore joints. Swedish massage therapists use five basic strokes, which anyone can learn and use on themselves and others.
2. DEEP TISSUE MASSAGE targets chronic tension in muscles that lie far below the surface of your body. You have five layers of muscle in your back, for instance, and while Swedish massage may help the first couple of layers, it won't do much directly for the muscle underneath.
3. SPORTS MASSAGE is designed to help you train better, whether you're a world champion or a weekend warrior. The techniques are similar to those in Swedish and deep tissue massage, but Greene says sports massage has been adapted to meet the athlete's special needs.
4. NEUROMUSCULAR MASSAGE is a form of deep tissue massage that is applied to individual muscles. It is used to increase blood flow, reduce pain and release pressure on nerves caused by injuries to muscles and other soft tissue.
5. ROLFING seeks to re-educate your body about posture. When posture is poor, Bienenfeld says, it can be reflected in a number of health problems, such as backaches, headaches and joint pain.
6. HELLERWORK is an offshoot of Rolfing that adds both mental and movement re-education to the physical work. In a series of 11 sessions, you get instruction on how to break bad posture habits and you also get a massage that focuses on returning your muscles and other tissue to their proper positions.
7. CRANIOSACRAL THERAPY focuses on the skull and spinal column. Therapists use very gently pressure no more than the weight of a nickel to massage the bones, membranes and fluids that support and bathe your skull and spinal column.
8. ASTON PATTERNING, another offshoot of Rolfing, was developed to teach people to maintain the improved alignment that they got through Rolfing. Aston-Patterning uses posture re-education and stresses physical fitness techniques.
9. FELDENKRAIS treats every body as an individual work of art, with different postures and different movement patterns. Practioners seek to teach their clients ideal patterns of movement through slow, gentle, exercise-like sessions. It also includes a gentle massage that is designed to teach a person how to expand his range of motion.
10. TRAGER uses gentle, rocking massage to help release the body's harmful "holding patterns." If you injured your left shoulder as a child, for example, you still may unconsciously carry it lower than your right shoulder, throwing your body off balance and robbing you of energy.

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