Hope you enjoy this one.

- 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.

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.

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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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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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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Josh the Masseur

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Interested in Massage? Click here and Get two free Massage Lessons

• 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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]]> http://blog.itseasytomassage.com/2007/07/26/tension-headaches/feed/ http://blog.itseasytomassage.com/2007/07/26/frozen-shoulder/ http://blog.itseasytomassage.com/2007/07/26/frozen-shoulder/#comments Thu, 26 Jul 2007 07:52:20 +0000 Josh http://blog.itseasytomassage.com/?p=9 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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Here are just some of the books that have inspired my direction:

Balance of Body/Balance of Mind- A Rolfer’s Vision of Buddhist Practice in the West by Will Johnson

BodyStories-A Guide to Experiential Anatomy by Andrea Olsen

Dynamic Alignment Through Imagery by Eric Franklin

BodyMind by Ken Dychtwald

Touching-The Human Significance of Skin by Ashley Montagu

Molecules of Emotion- The Science Behind Mind-Body Medicine by Candance B. Pert

Body by Don Hanlon Johnson

Job’s Body- Handbook for Bodywork by Deane Juhan

Sensory Awareness by Charles W. Brooks

The Body Has Its Reasons- Self Awareness Through Conscious Movement by Therese Bertherat

Bone, Breath and Gesture by Don Hanlon Johnson

The Future of the Body- Explorations Into the Further Evolution of Human Nature by Michael Murphy

The Feeling of What Happens - Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness by Antonio Damasio

The Absent Body by Drew Leder

The Spell of the Sensous by David Abram

Phenomenology of Perception by Maurice Merlau-Ponty

The Breathing Book by Donna Farhi

The Thinking Body- A Study of the Balancing Forces of Dynamic Man by Mabel E. Todd

Inside Motion- An Ideokinetic Basis for Movement Education by John Rolland

Wisdom of the Body Moving- An Introduction to Body-Mind Centering by Linda Hartley

A Kinesthetic Legacy- The Life and Works of Barbara Clark by Pamela Matt

The Fabric of Wholeness - Biological Intelligence and Relational Gravity by Carol Agneessens

Ways to Better Breathing by Carola Speads

Josh the Masseur

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