How to apply pressure without straining your body or damaging your hands is one of the greatest challenges involved in massage.
The most significant cause of early retirement from the massage profession is the cumulative strains on the body developed in the course of performing massages. The growth of the profession in recent years has been accompanied by an increase in the number of work induced problems. Practitioners can strain their hands, particularly their thumbs, fingers and wrists, and also their shoulders and backs.
This book highlights aspects of massage that can lead to these problems and offers guidance for avoiding these. The focus is on how to use your body safely and effectively in massage sessions. This includes involving your whole body to generate the power and movement that supports your working hands, saving your hands by using them skilfully and conserving them by using other body areas such as your forearms and elbows whenever possible. This book is essential reading for anyone involved in massage, whether you are a student, a professional massage practitioner or teacher, sports massage therapist or aromatherapist.
Darien Pritchard calls upon nearly 30 years of massage experience, including 25 years of training massage professionals. He teaches bodywork modules in a university degree course, provides advanced training courses for massage practitioners, and is a guest teacher on training courses for blind and visually impaired practitioners in Britain and Scandinavia.
Darien is a co-director of the Massage Training Institute (MTI), a national organisation of holistic massage schools, and serves on the executive of the General Council for Massage Therapy, UK. With Su Fox, he co-authored Anatomy, Physiology and Pathology for the Massage Therapist, which is aimed at students and the early practitioner.
