Therapeutic Massage 101: Therapeutic Massage Versus Relaxation Massage

Therapeutic Massage Has A Goal

Therapeutic massage differs from relaxation massage because we have a goal that we’re aiming for with therapeutic massage.

Relaxation massage is just working on the nervous system. We’re pushing blood around. Feels nice. It’s relaxing.

Therapeutic massage is more for something like a headache. You can’t move your head. You can’t go up and down the stairs without your knee being painful.

So therapeutic massage is trying to correct a problem. And that’s when the therapist’s expertise and testing comes into play.

I enjoy treating a wide variety of conditions. I generally like more complicated conditions. If you have been in pain for a long time and you haven’t had success elsewhere, you’re my favorite type of client.

In terms of things I see regularly, I see it all. But I generally seem to attract quite a lot of people who are having chronic headaches, bad foot pain, nervous system issues, neurodiverse community. Back pain, hip pain, I spend a lot of time doing that.

A lot of work throughout the head. I work on it all. But that seems to be the mainstay of what I treat a lot.

Pain, Discomfort, And Client Comfort

You Are Always In Charge

When it comes to acceptable levels of pain during treatment, you are always in charge.

So there are certain techniques that may be painful. If I need to use them, they’ll come with a warning and your permission, and I’ll be as kind as possible.

Outside of that, I am not a big believer in pain during treatment. If anything, it’s discomfort is what we’re shooting for.

And the difference between pain and discomfort is pain is something that will make you want to tense up, alter your breathing. Discomfort is even though I may be working in a place that’s not happy to see me that feels obnoxious, you are okay with the treatment and you don’t feel the need to tense up or alter your breathing or anything, you could stay completely relaxed.

But in the end, it’s my job to accommodate your needs, not the other way around. I will adapt to whatever your tolerance levels are.

Massage therapy can help with a wide variety of conditions. Frozen shoulder, plantar fascitis, headaches, toricalis, basically anything that’s orthopedic in nature, massage therapists can help.

And the range of pain can be from severe. Sometimes my clients are in so much pain that they can barely stand to be touched. And it doesn’t mean they can’t get massaged. It just means there’s different techniques involved.

Sometimes there are issues where the person might have a lot of anxiety or brain fog or balance issues and again sometimes that has an orthopedic component. So we address the nervous system and we address the spine to correct these issues.

Once we get the biomechanics in order then everything starts falling into place.

Nervous System, TMJ, And Headache Treatment

Gentle Techniques And Release Work

Also working on the nervous system. There are connective tissue lines in the head that we can release.

There are pressure points that will work on say in your ears on your vagus nerve where we apply pressure here. And this will calm the nervous system down very well when I hold it for a while.

And then also we can work on different nerves around the eyes and on the eyes. And these will all have a very calming effect. They’re all very gentle and they’ll all take you from a state of high anxiety to feeling quite relaxed.

Then when we get into areas like TMJ, we’ll be doing just very very tight work around the actual joint itself. We’ll be working around the cheeks. And that’s a real basic release of the connector tissue and the muscles around there.

I’ll be doing some stretching like say to your jaw to help release these structures here. Also great for headaches where I’m just grabbing the jaw and I’m just doing some gentle traction down.

Hold that for a minute or two. Sometimes I have to work on releasing these small muscle all these muscles right here that cause headaches also TMJ and all that can be just as gentle sometimes as just doing a little cross technique or grabbing the muscle and just putting a very gentle stretch on them to release where I’m tricking the tendon into releasing on its own.

It’s not just brute force pressure or anything like that. Also for TMJ, I might actually have to get into the mouth if it’s especially bad, but we don’t usually have to go that far.

Appointment Length, First Visits, And What To Wear

What To Expect During Treatment

Generally, I like to stick to hour appointments. Now, outside of the hour appointments, we have half an hour, 45 minute, hour and a half, but I really like to reserve those for specific purposes.

Sometimes an hour and a half is appropriate if we’re trying to make some headway in a situation or if there’s a lot of areas involved that need attention where a half an hour I would pretty much only do for people who I’ve known for a bit. I know what their issues are.

And say you’re a chronic headache sufferer and I’m familiar with you and I know that you just need to pop in for a half an hour just to stay ahead of the curve when the weather changes or if you’ve had a bad day.

On the first treatment, there’s an intake you’ll need to complete with your medical history, and we’ll go over that.

Then we’ll find out what your goals are for treatment. Then that will be followed by some manual testing, some range testing to see exactly where you are and how what’s being affected.

Could be a muscular issue, it could be a joint issue, could be a ligamentous issue, could be a nervous system issue. There’s a lot of reasons why you may be experiencing the pain you’re experiencing and the dysfunction you’re experiencing.

You undress to the level of your comfort. Now, that being said, some treatments are just done better if they’re done on the skin. But there are plenty of times that the client does not get changed at all.

Especially with the neck and the head and the feet, but there are treatment options to be done over clothing if that’s what’s required.

The number of sessions it takes to notice a difference really depends. The average that I find sometimes there could be a meaningful impact on the first treatment. Sometimes it takes a couple of treatments.

No matter what happens, we should have made some very good headway with you being able to make decisions about how you’re going to progress going forward after three total treatments.

Treatment style varies from therapist to therapist. I’ve been doing this for quite a long time, so I don’t have any one set style. I adapt to the needs of the condition and the client.

Sometimes I’m working on the nervous systems. A lot of times I have to work on the fascia and fascia releases more than I have to work on the actual structure of the muscle. They’re both related and intertwined, but sometimes it’s a fascial problem.

Sometimes we can’t get the joint to move. So there are techniques like rapid but for the most part it all breaks down to the same no matter what the label is it all breaks down to the same type of fascial release joint play mechanic just with a different label on top of it.

Generally besides fascial release, I like to trick the muscles into relaxing the tissue into relaxing with joint play, nervous system techniques and things that work on the muscle spindle or the tendon to trick the muscle into relaxing so that we can make some headway.

Generally, what you should wear or bring depends on your needs, your level of modesty. If you just come as you are, that’s generally quite workable.

I would say if we’re going to work on your feet, please have a pair of socks that we can put on after we’ve done that.

Otherwise, if you want to come in with shorts, you could do that. Sometimes we go down to underwear. You’re always appropriately draped, so you’re covered except for the area that we’re being worked on.

So, that’s not a problem. But sometimes, like I said, we’ll work over clothing if we need to. But for the most part, you can just come as you are.