Massage Blog

I have recently read an insightful article on 60 things to increasing your metabolic rate in health magazine. It backed up all the things i have learned and gave me a few new things that made sense. Increasing your metabolic rate is a way you can loose fat quicker, later down the track being able to go to a party and not worry about what you’re eating, increase fitness level and aid in the bodies good health and efficient and effective digestion, in other words getting the most out of your foods. I wont mention all 60 tips but ill mention a few stand outs.

- Avoid drinking water with your meals, because it dilutes the enzymes that break down fats, carbs and proteins. Instead drink water in between meals to prevent snacking.

- Eating a piece of fruit before a large meal will kick start your system ready for digestion.

- Full fat milk is much better than fat free milk or any other fat free products while trying to loose weight, because fat free products use artificial sweeteners which have a addictive quality as well as turning into fat if you don’t the energy the product within a half hour of consumption.

- Eat plenty of Vegetables and never over cook especially when boiling or steaming or else there nutrients are lost. They often only need a few minutes to cook. Avoid pealing your vegies as well because the peal is where most of the nutrients lie.

- Fats and oils are quite important for your body, they also help you feel fuller for longer, to help with decreasing snacking

- If trying to loose weight, avoiding sugar is one of the largest, most effective ways to shed kg’s. look at the ingredient on the back of things and if sugar is their try to find something else to chomp on like a caret or piece of fruit if the craving for something sweet is too over whelming.

- Exercising 30mins a day would do wanders. Effective exercise for weight lose is fast and intense 5 minute bursts of exercise with a 10 to 20 minute break, repeating several times. Because with high energy activities and weight training it takes around 5 minutes for your muscles to fatigue therefore not getting the most out of your body to burn the fat. Its also in resting from the intense short workout that your body is recovering and still burning fats.

Touching can come in many forms, anything from sensual, to healing, to abusive. Most of the time when we touch other people there is a purpose behind the touch, unless you accidentally bump or brush past someone in the street or shopping center, even then you notice it and notice whether it was intentional or awkward. Touch can reflect many different and unique styles of communication. No words could be spoken and yet you can still say “i love you”, “leave me alone” or “I’m going to fix your pain” through touch. Touch doesn’t solely depend on how its done but a lot to do with why its done. The intention’s of your touch can be felt, so be careful why you are touching, make sure its with good intension. But its not until you realize this, that you discover the art of touching in all kinds of ways. The better Remedial massage therapists not only use their hands and techniques to manually manipulate soft tissue through specific touching styles, but also have every intention in the way they work to heal and redesign the body and its soft tissue through their touch.

Not Free Drugs, Drug free, meaning no drugs needed. Pain killer drugs are a quick fix to masking pain and discomfort, the drugs aim to block the pain messages to the brain. Most often your body is in pain for a reason, not just to get in the way of your daily tasks, but because its trying to tell you something, either “slow down” “somethings not working properly” “do things differently” or “STOP!!!”. Your body can also be in some sort of trauma or has experienced trauma and all it can do is ache and try to let you know you need to get something fixed or at least looked at. Usually pain means there is something your doing with your body that your body doesn’t like, or you have an existing condition that exists just to make your life harder. Drugs are quick and easy, but they act like tucking your issues under the carpet or in the closet hoping that you, or anyone else will notice that theres still mess in the house, its just been moved. The fact is is that if you keep sweeping things under the carpet or shoving them in the closet, eventually something will give, the carpet will become lumpy and unlivable or the doors will break on your cupboard creating more of a problem to fix then to begin with. In layman’s terms, its best to sort out and fix the underlying causes, and symptoms to help minimize and eliminate pain before it becomes chronic and life gets a lot harder. Massage is drug free and works on redesigning the way your muscles work. Its one of the best ways to keep muscles healthy for years to come.

Joshua Hardidge the Remedial Massage Therapist

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These days your thumbs are one of the most important parts of your body in communication (via text messages, typing in phone numbers, using the space button on your keyboard etc.), and for a massage therapist they are one of the tools of the trade that often makes or breaks a good massage. Your thumbs are over used throughout life, by using your hands in many ways such as gripping your knife and fork while cutting a large steak, picking up your cup of tea in the afternoon while watching Oprah (for the ladies out there, and some men)… moving furniture, changing the channel, doing the dishes, hitching a ride, sifting through your bundle of hundred dollar notes, anything in daily life, even when relaxing seems to be putting stress or working your thumbs. Massage therapist and other hands on trades put a significant amount of extra pressure on their thumbs by simply doing what they do best. For massage therapist in particular their thumbs and hands are their tools, and without them they would struggle to keep up with relieving their clients muscle pain, especially if they performed trigger point therapy. There are a few easy ways to save your thumbs as a therapist and still give a good deep massage. Hate to do it but you could say “3 THINGS to SAVE YOUR THUMBS”… They are 1. Knuckles 2. Supported fingertips, & 3. Elbows… additional ways of saving your thumbs are to use tools such as Cupping techniques, hand held trigger point tool, or vibrating devices, these can be good it ways, give a hands off clinical approach and you can’t feel whats going on with the tissue so you can’t be as precise with your techniques.

1. Knuckles can be used to strip along muscle bellies, knead and stretch out fibres and get deep into larger areas such as gluts, hamstrings and kneading into the upper traps.

2. Supported fingertips can be a little more accurate and able to get into smaller spots such as under and around the scapula, into the deltoids, around the top of on under the iliac spine, round the calves and right up the neck.

3. Elbows and forearms, are to be used if you have a client that wants deep tissue and isn’t afraid of a little pain, you are able to use elbows stripping up erector spinae group, right over and down the upper traps, stripping up the hamstrings, calves, ITB, gluts. Elbows are great to get deep into the gluts and to use for trigger point therapy on the piriformis muscle, hamstrings gluts and all the way up the back.

These options can save your hands and thumbs in a large way so you can be massaging for years to come and not burn out like a lot of therapists do.

Josh the Masseur

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The new thing to hit the market in the last 5 years is linked with the laws and push for Occupational Health and Safety. Corporate Massage is generally a short massage ranging from 5 - 30minutes mainly on concerned areas such as neck and shoulders. Massage in a workplace has proven to boost staff moral, increase performance, decrease work related stress and muscular conditions such as tension headaches, frozen shoulders, muscle aches and pains. These conditions can slow a persons productivity and destroy any motivation, massage within this environment is a great way to combat these mental conditions that spring from stress and pain, directly where they occur. Pain can often be very hard to deal with especially when things need to get done, which is where massage in the workplace has found its market. There are many corporate massage businesses around, springing up and getting to the stage of competing for work. This is great for the massage industry because it is exploiting the benefits of massage and the need for touch and muscle health during a stressful era of working life.

Josh the Masseur

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There are 2 new Free Massage lessons on itseasytomassage.com meaning you can try out and learn a few massage techniques for free. Visit the website and follow the Free lesson link on the front page, Enter your details, and you will receive 2 online massage video lessons as well as free relaxation audio to listen and relax to.

Josh the Masseur

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Causes and Pathogenesis

• One of the most common forms of headaches
• Most common in adults and adolescence
• 2 or more times a week for several months it’s considered chronic
• Constriction of neck and scalp muscles
• Muscles involved: Temporalis, Occipitalfrontalis, SCM(sternocliedomastoid), Sub occipitals, Levator Scapula, Masator
• Muscular, tendinous, or ligamentous injury to the head or neck structures
• The ligaments in the neck may be most easily injured
• Muscle tension in the sub occipital triangle or the jaw flexors can cause headaches
  • These are especially vulnerable to the effects of emotional stress
• central nervous system dysfunction
• Active Trigger Points in involved muscles
• Emotional Traumatic experiences
• Continuous/sustained contraction of head and neck muscles
• Inactive muscles causing myofascial restrictions
• Muscle Atrophy in head and neck muscles causing muscle imbalances

Tension type headaches are the most common forms of headaches. These headaches are bilateral with a pressing, nonpulsating feel, lasting from 30 minutes to 7 days. The historical theory has been that tension-type headaches are due to sustained contraction of cervical and pericranial muscles. However, electromyographic (EMG) studies don’t support a muscle contraction mechanism in tension-type headaches. Rather, more and more evidence exists implicating myofascial TrP pain as an etiologic source of pain in these headaches. These myofascial TrP however can be activated by a constant contraction and overuse of the head and neck muscles, in an abnormal position. These positions and activating factors differ between each muscle involved, but send referred pain to the areas that tension-type headaches present.

Affected muscles

• Affected muscles:
  • Temporalis,
  • Occipitalfrontalis,
  • SCM(sternocliedomastoid),
  • Sub occipitals,
  • Splenius Capitis and cervicis
  • Levator Scapula,
  • Masator

For More information about muscles, their attachments and how to treat tension headaches you can get video lessons and deeper anatomy knowledge on muscles etc. at itseasytomassage.com

Josh the Masseur

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Description

Frozen shoulder (adhesive capsulitis) is a disorder characterized by pain and loss of motion or stiffness in the shoulder. It affects about two percent of the general population. It is more common in women between the ages of 40 years to 70 years old. The causes of frozen shoulder are not fully understood. The process involves thickening and contracture of the capsule surrounding the shoulder joint. A doctor can diagnose frozen shoulder based on the history of the patient’s symptoms and physical examination. X-rays or MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) studies are sometimes used to rule out other causes of shoulder stiffness and pain, such as rotator cuff tear.

Risk Factors/Prevention

Frozen shoulder occurs much more commonly in individuals with diabetes, affecting 10 percent to 20 percent of these individuals. Other medical problems associated with increased risk of frozen shoulder include: hypothyroidism, hyperthyroidism, Parkinson’s disease, and cardiac disease or surgery. Frozen shoulder can develop after a shoulder is injured or immobilized for a period of time. Attempts to prevent frozen shoulder include early motion of the shoulder after it has been injured.

Symptoms

Pain due to frozen shoulder is usually dull or aching. It can be worsened with attempted motion. The pain is usually located over the outer shoulder area and sometimes the upper arm. The hallmark of the disorder is restricted motion or stiffness in the shoulder. The affected individual cannot move the shoulder normally. Motion is also limited when someone else attempts to move the shoulder for the patient. Some physicians have described the normal course of a frozen shoulder as having three stages:

• Stage one: In the “freezing” stage, which may last from six weeks to nine months, the patient develops a slow onset of pain. As the pain worsens, the shoulder loses motion.
• Stage two: The “frozen” stage is marked by a slow improvement in pain, but the stiffness remains. This stage generally lasts four months to nine months.
• Stage three: The final stage is the “thawing”, during which shoulder motion slowly returns toward normal. This generally lasts five months to 26 months.

Treatment Options

Frozen shoulder will generally get better on its own. However, this takes some time, occasionally up to two to three years. If you have a stiff and painful shoulder, see your physician to make sure no other injuries are present. Treatment is aimed at pain control and restoration of motion. The first goal is pain control. This can be achieved with anti-inflammatory medications. This can also be achieved by self treatment, stretches and exercise as well as massage. Because Frozen Shoulder is a reoccurring chronic condition any heat treatment works well in easing pain and inflammation, opposed to ice for acute conditions. Massage aims to increase blood flow, warmth and flexibility to the entire shoulder girdle mainly including the rotator cuff muscles to easy pain and tightness on the capsule surrounding the shoulder joint.

Josh the Masseur

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Dry Needling is a technique used by Myotherapists and other specialists to specifically target and needle trigger points. It acts to mechanically release the trigger points to provide relief to the area and muscle concerned.

Josh the Masseur

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Cupping is an ancient form of treatment which uses cups to heat and suck blood and toxins to the surface, to be able to flush through and clease your body. there are different ways of cupping.

Glass cups are paced or moved over the surface of the skin while sustaining suction. Cupping is a relaxing technique used to release superficial adhesions between the skin and the muscles’ myofascia. It aims to flush toxins through the lymphatic system and improve blood circulation within the muscle. Static Cupping Techniques will bring toxins accumulated deep within the muscle to the surface so that they can drain.

History of cupping

Cupping had many names for reasons of the different methods of cupping.. other names for cupping therapy, include “horning”, “needlehorn”, “sucking method”, “fire - cupping”, “boiling bamboo cylinder”.
These signify the different methods used to get the same or similar results. Horning was a technique generally used by shepherds on their sheep, using a hollowed horn from a wild bore or horned animal. The tip of the horn was cut off so that the shepherd could suck through that end, creating suction. They were then placed on areas of the sheep that the sheep seemed irritated with, therefore sucking the toxins to the surface. Later they learned that they could use plug that they held in their mouths, sucked and then placed the plug in to the hole with their tongs, this allowed them to put on multiple horns and leave them for longer, which then became known as ‘needlehorn’, and the ’sucking method’.
Fire was introduced with use of wooden and bamboo cups, where the fire was quickly put inside the cut to suck the oxygen out then swiftly placed onto the area, creating the suction. with technological advancements glass cups were made using the same fire method. Now days you can get rubber plunger like suction cups, and a variety of plastic cups with pumps and valves, and a mixture of small plastic cups with magnetic prongs in the center. All these though, have the same purpose as that of ancient cupping methods.

Josh the Masseur

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