Archive for Massage School Notes

Glossary of Massage Terms -D,E

November 24, 2010 Julie Onofrio Massage School Notes

Glossary of Massage Terms (D,E)

Deep Tendon Reflex – knee jerk reflex that occurs as a result of a strike by a rubber mallet to a tendon

Desquamation – The shedding of epithehial elements mainly the skin, in scales or small sheets: exfoliation

Direct Compression – Sustained pressure on a muscle cramp or tight muscle often using the hand, fist, forearm or knee

Dislocation – Displacement of a bony part within a joint leading to soft tissue damage, inflammation, pain and muscle spasm

Distraction – A pulling apart or separation of joint surfaces

Dysfunction – Adapative shortening of soft tissues resulting in loss of mobility

Eccentric Muscle Contraction – Lengthening of the muscle while it is contracting or resisting a work load

Efficiency – the Ratio of work output to work input.  Output divided by input and multiplied by 100 equals 100% efficiency

Electrolytes – Ionized salts in the blood, tissue fluids and cells

Empty Calories – calories obtained from food such as sugar, which are devoid of any dietary essentials like amino acids, vitamins and minerals

End-feel – the quality of feel the massage therapist experiences when passively applying pressure at the end point of the available range of motion

Endurance – The ability of a muscle to perform repeated contractions over a prolonged period of time before fatigue failure begins

Energy- The capacity for doing work

Engaging Tissue – When a sufficient amount of pressure is applied during palpation or treatment in order to move or compress the structure, then the tissue is engaged and assessment or treatment will be efficacious.

Enzymes- Complex proteins that are capable of speeding up chemical changes in other substances without being changed themselves.  Enzymes are found in digestive juices where they break down food into simpler compounds

Ergogenic Aids – Stimulants and other substance that when taken orally or by injection, increase the potential for exercise performance.  Most are illegal substances

Ergometer- A stationary bicycle used for training or for lab tests to measure work performed

Excursion- In friction, it refers to the distance of movement or glide available from the starting point in a pattern of oscillation or alternating movements with a return to the starting point.

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The depth in deep tissue massage

October 30, 2010 Julie Onofrio Become a Massage Therapist, Massage Theory

Learning deep tissue massage is one of the many things you can do to set yourself apart from all of the other massage therapists out there.  Having a good deep tissue instructor in massage school can help.  How will you know if they are good?  They will teach that it isn’t about applying more or deeper pressure using physical strength.  Good deep tissue won’t leave you bruised or feeling hurt the next day.  The other part of this is how people feel or what they are able to feel and what they want to feel in their massage.  I for one have really ropey back muscles from arthritis and scoliosis and find that I can’t feel it when most people say they are doing deep tissue.  I also have had years of structural integration (Zentherapy) where the goal was to create pain in some ways (more on that later).   I personally get better results when I can feel the pressure being applied.  The pressure doesn’t feel painful to me.  It feels good!  It helps be to feel better and feel more!  To me that is what all massage is really doing – helping people to feel more.

So in learning deep tissue in basic massage school, you will most likely be learning about connective tissue and the deeper muscles of the body like the psoas, piriformis and other muscles.  A good deep tissue massage therapist will learn to palpate the various structures and be able to feel the tightness in different layers of the muscles.  Just taking a weekend workshop or two in deep tissue is only just the beginning.  It really takes practice and developing your skills to go deep.   As I said, I also took Zentherapy training in the 1990′s with it’s founder William “Dub” Leigh.  He combined his training with Ida Rolf and a Zen Master from HI and tried to teach that using “Ki” or “Chi” was a much more effective way of doing deep tissue.  The only problem is that most people were still having deep tissue forced on them instead of “using the force” and people were often screaming on the massage table.  When force is used it creates more resistance and tension usually.  People will tense up more rather than relax more.  It is also a matter of learning to work with clients using deep tissue and keeping in contact with them and keeping them in their bodies while you are doing deep tissue.  It is about engaging them in the process and teaching them about their bodies showing them how their bodies work and how they can learn to relax tight muscles with things like breathing and awareness.  Getting them to notice the change that occurs in their body when you are working on them can help to show them the value of massage and what it can do which will hopefully help you in getting regular weekly clients.

While the Zentherapy deep tissue is now too extreme for me now, I did learn some key things to doing deep tissue through their trainings.  One of them is to use your body and your breathing to apply deep tissue pressure instead of trying to use strength or force.   I first let my elbow or knuckle or fingertips touch the surface and then take a deep breath myself and allow my body to relax and ‘sink into’ the clients body gently yet firmly.

Most spas and massage franchises say that they are doing deep tissue massage but I have found to be the work and skills very inconsistent.  It also seems like many spas define deep tissue as just applying more pressure and don’t really know the difference.   So learning ‘real’ deep tissue can help you to make a difference in your job performance and help to set you aside from the other massage therapists at places like these.  There isn’t a clear definition of deep tissue massage that is understood even among massage therapists.  So when clients are getting deep tissue at one place and it is just deeper pressure, they don’t really get the full understanding of what deep tissue could really be like.  Things like this make it challenging for massage therapists to be in and stay in business and find jobs.  How a clear definition can be created and put into the hands of every massage therapist is the issue.

To explain further with an example:  I do deep tissue massage and triggerpoint therapy work.  I had a client come in a few weeks ago saying he had been seeing a MT at a local franchise weekly for over a year but he was in a significant amount of pain.  He had been getting deep tissue massage.  When I worked on him one time he said he had never gotten a massage like that and most of his pain was gone.

I used to even give clients a handout on getting deep tissue massage but now I just verbally talk to people about deep tissue work.

It is important if you are learning deep tissue to be worked on  people who are doing good deep tissue.  It is also recommended that you practice and learn. It takes a few years or more to be really good and proficient in deep tissue massage. I have outlined some of the things about deep tissue massage on the main website and am also creating a section on deep tissue massage on my other website -www.massage-career-guides.com to help teach massage students about the concepts of deep tissue massage to help them decide on a course of study.  Share your stories there about how learning deep tissue or getting deep tissue massage has helped you.

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Myofascial Release and Fascia

August 29, 2010 Julie Onofrio Massage Theory, Types of Massage

What do you know about myofascial release and fascia?  Well I didn’t know much before this weekend.

Today I am starting a new thing which is posting blogs posts here to share my latest pages that I am creating on my websites.  This weekend was spent researching myofascial release and a new page in the types of massage section at www.massage-career-guides.com .  I have been reading about myofascial release for the last two days perusing books I have and looking online and I have to say it is one of the most confusing things and yes I was even trained in an offshoot of structural integration which can be considered a type of myofascial release.  The problem is that there are so many different types of massage that can really be called myofascial release.  In fact I would gather that any time you touch someone doing massage you are doing myofascial release because the fascia is an integrated part of the muscle.  You can’t separate the two.  So Rolfing, Structural Integration, cranial sacral therapy, effleurage , connective tissue massage are all forms of myofascial release.   More confusing yet is the fact that while John Barnes is the person who is making this type of work so popular and he has called his work specifically “Myofascial Release (MFR)” when in fact there are many type of hands on therapist that can release the myofascial structures.

As I read and learned I decided my background in fascia has long been forgotten or I am not even sure if they taught that in massage school so I followed up with a few pages on connective tissue and fascia. (Like how I use the keywords in the links?  That is one of the steps of good search engine optimization!)

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Massage and cancer

October 9, 2009 Julie Onofrio Massage Research, Pathology

Massage and Cancer used to be taboo when I first started out 20 years ago as a massage therapist.  Massage school used to tell us that it was strictly forbidden to do massage on anyone with cancer or who had survived cancer thinking that working on tumors would dislodge them and cause cancer to spread.

There are still some places that won’t work on people with cancer or who have had cancer and rightly so without proper training and knowledge.

Today massage is far from becoming a standard part of cancer care but it is on it’s way into cancer patients lives, hospitals, hospices and keeping people healthy.

There isn’t much research on massage and cancer that shows that it can help the immune system.  What massage does for people with cancer is to help them deal with the stress, discomfort, symptom relief , help with anxiety, depression, fatigue, nausea and help increase spiritual aspects of dealing with a challenging disease like cancer.  The few studies that have been done show that massage looks promising for helping with anxiety and pain.

There are a few pioneers in the field of massage who studied massage and cancer and started making it OK for people with cancer to get massage.

Gayle McDonald is the author of  “Medicine Hands: Massage for People Living with Cancer.  She also teaches classes by the same name.  She also has a class called “Massage in the Oncology Setting: A five-day Hospital Intensive that she offers.  The 300 Hour Oncology Massage Certification Program is for people who are serious about doing massage with cancer patients.

Her expertise comes from more than 10 years of work with oncology patients at Oregon Health and Science University.  She has also supervised massage students and therapists on the oncology unit, in chemo infusion, radiation oncology, and the bone marrow transplant unit.  Her work has made it possible to take cancer off the list of contraindications for massage.

You can find more info on her classes and books on her website at www.medicinehands.com

Cheryl Chapman is another forerunner in the field of massage for cancer.  Cheryl is a pioneer in Cancer and Mastectomy Massage. She began teaching Cancer Massage in 1990.  She offers classes in breast massage to help keep breast tissue healthy and also deal with massectomies and other surgeries.

She is the author of  “The Happy Breast Book” .  You can find more information about her classes and work at her website www.cherychapman.com

Tracy Walton is a massage therapist and researcher.  Best known for an intensive continuing education course for massage therapists, Caring for Clients with Cancer, Tracy has taught it nationally since 1999. Her course offerings also include an Advanced Seminar and a basic one-day Cancer and Massage Training in safety essentials.   Her focus on research is an important step for the massage profession.  You can find a list of research papers on her website at  www.tracywalton.com along with details of her classes.

An ongoing project of mine has been to collect a list of articles on massage and cancer to have as a resource for massage therapists.  You can find it in the massage pathology section at the main website www.thebodyworker.com If you have any resources or information to add on massage and cancer – please share your information here!

See also:  Society for Oncology Massage

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Massage Ethics Classes

August 19, 2009 Julie Onofrio Ethics

Massage Ethics Classes are often a required part of  massage licensing renewal.   They are also a part of renewing your National Certification through the NCBTMB if you are required to have that.

Ethics classes used to seem like the most boring part of being a massage therapist but studying ethics now seems like the only thing we should have to do as a massage therapist.  The techniques don’t really matter much if you don’t have clear boundaries and relationships with clients.

Ethics is just about relationships.  Relationships are the core of building a successful massage business or being successful in your massage job.  Studying ethics will help you if you are male and in this female dominated profession helping you to understand your role.   Women can benefit from studying ethics to help them deal with the many challenges of working on men (yes the dreaded E!) .

Ethics is just the process of uncovering your values and learning about relationships and how your work as a massage therapist can influence those relationships.   The clients that fall in love with you and want to marry you, the people who want to always get a discount or will hate it when you raise your rates.

People who are under stress and in pain and are half naked underneath a sheet are vulnerable.  As a massage therapist it is your responsibility to understand your role and understand where they are coming from or at least be able to not interfere in their lives.   I remember Oprah saying once on TV that she just wished massage therapists would shut up!

Ethics requires rational thought about what it is that you are doing or what is happening in your massage world.  Many may first think that they know what to do when a client asks them out on a date and may think there is no harm in dating clients or even just being friends with clients.  Educating massage therapists as to what happens in the therapeutic relationship can help them make more informed decisions about their actions.

It isn’t about being right or wrong.  It is about making a decision that supports you and your massage business.  There is also a legal side to being a massage therapist and working within your scope of practice.  What is legal is not always ethical and what is ethical is not always legal.  Ethics is about striving to be the best you can be and about treating people decently and respectfully.

Taking massage ethics classes is the most important thing you can do for yourself and the massage profession.

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