Massage Chair Massage

A chair massage is a 10, 15, 20 or 30 minute massage that focuses on the high tension areas of the neck, back, shoulders, arms and hands. The massage is performed on an ergonomically designed portable massage chair. Chair massage produces therapeutic results quickly by concentrating on the areas of greatest tension.

Breaking

Sunday, February 18, 2018

1:14 AM

Chair Massage : Techniques to Save Your Thumbs



Thank you for joining us tonight at Incorporate Massage.
We're doing a demo of a chair massage.
For tonights purposes I am just going to be demo-ing the upper back, shoulders, neck and maybe a little bit of head. My demonstration is purposefully going to be geared toward people not using your thumbs as much as possible. I went to massage school at the age of 50 and I want to keep doing this until I'm in my 70s and maybe 80s. So, my thumbs are very important to me.

So tonight we're going to use a lot of elbow and forearm. My model is Stephanie.
So when you put your client in the chair you want to—come forward—make sure that they're comfortable, that everything's adjusted.

We want the chair to be holding the client up.
We don't want the client to be holding the chair up. That's not going to be a comfortable massage.
Every massage therapist has a little different way of introducing their touch.

So you don't want to go in there and just grab the client right away. You want to softly come in and let them get used to what your touch is. I will generally start with the shoulders like this.

Then just kind of move down the back so that the client gets used to me and isn't going to jump out of the chair.
I'm going to use a fist. The whole point is to keep your joints stacked.
My wrists are straight, my elbows are relatively straight and I'm using my body weight.

I'm not just using my hands. We come up to the top of the shoulder.
You're going to bring your fingers in and roll back toward the heel of your hand, pulling the trapezius together.
My thumbs aren't involved in this at all. Anytime that I use my thumbs I keep them straight and the whole motion comes from the entire arm, not the thumbs.
You don't want to just be moving your thumbs around like that because you'll wear out your joints.
You won't be a massage therapist very long—and everybody loves a massage therapist.

So now I'm going to come in with my elbow. And again, you're not going to just jump right in.
You want to lay your elbow down at about the bottom of the scapula is where we're going to start—right next to the spine.
And gently just sort of hook in and roll up onto the blade of your forearm.

It's a lot of compression work that I do.
How's that pressure, Stephanie?
Stephanie: It's good.
Ok.
And I generally try to do three lines up the back.

So there'll be one right next to the spine, then one between the spine and the scapula.
I'm just slowly working it up.
You'll try to keep your back as straight as possible.

The front knee is bent in lunge position and all the weight is coming off of my back leg.
The third line we're going to come like right around the medial border of the scapula.

The same thing with compressions. Rolling forward, and then up onto the top of the shoulder.
Then I'll go around with my fingers trying to keep my fingers stiff and together, making a little "C" scoop.
Feel all around the scapula.

Make little circles to see if there's any trigger points that didn't melt with those compressions.
You're always keeping your fingers together.
My thumb is usually just an anchor on the shoulder blade, depending on how some people have very wide shoulder blades so you're in the middle.

You can come down around the lateral edge of the scapula with your thumbs. Keep them, again, straight, joints stacked and work around the edges of the scapula. When we're doing corporate chair massage, a large percentage of what we'll do is going to be this upper back, neck, and shoulders.

I have found that a lot of people have trigger points up here in this top edge of the trapezius and I actually will work it from both sides in a circular motion.
It seems to release pretty fast that way.
In these compressions, my fingers are bringing the muscles to the heel of my hand.

Try to get a little bit of mobility in the shoulder.

To Stephanie: Drop your shoulder.

Grab the shoulder from underneath and then we're going to move it.

And again, use your body weight.
Don't just use your hands and your arms.
Use your entire body.

Now I'll come around to the front of the client.

Again, at this point my thumbs are pretty much the anchor.

I'm pretty much using the first three fingers, sometimes only two.

When you're on the client, making little circles, finding out if we have any more trigger points, working this area.
So stephanie has one right here.

What I'm going to do is I'm going to keep my fingers stiff on it here, just sort of monitoring that point.
I'm going to pick up the arm.

Make sure your client relaxes and just lets you do the work. And then I'm going to bring the shoulder to the trigger point.

Hold it for 15 to 30 seconds.
You'll feel it start to melt.
Then I'll usually move the shoulder a bit.
Move it around.
Again, I'm coming to the front of the client.

This time I'm using my thumbs again in a straight, stiff position so all the joints are stacked and I'm going to feel all along the top of the collar bone.

A lot of people get those trigger points or little knots in there.

You can work those out.

But the whole motion is coming from my arm and my body, not just the thumb.

Along the bottom of the collar bone.

You can work the shoulder joints, again, keeping your fingers together.

Most of the time when we're in an event situation where we're going pretty fast through clients, we don't really have a lot of time to use lotion.

You don't want to be gliding on a person's neck or their skin.

So what I'll do is I'll use my knuckles.

Actually just kind of try to hook it into the muscle, and then I'm going to be moving the muscle with my knuckles instead of gliding on the skin.

Try to keep your thumbs as loose as possible.

This allows you to go through, across several muscles at one time.

Coming up under the base of the skull I make my fingers into a little 'C'.

Come up under the base of the skull in little circular motions.

It will help release a lot of tension in the neck and the head.

Sunday, February 11, 2018

9:11 AM

Chair Massage: Neck Massage Techniques




So I always like to start just with the basic kind of rub down to the neck to figure out where all the tension is.

A lot of people that are sitting at desks all day— which are the people ninety percent of people that we work on— they're going to have tension in their traps.

They're going to have tension in their levators which are right here, and they're also going to have tension in the in the clavicle muscles and up in the mastoid which is the jaw muscle.

So that's why I like to have people sitting up rather than leaning forward to do their neck muscle because then you have full access to the muscles in the front as well, where if they're leaning forward those muscles are kind of blocked for
you.

So I usually just start up in here. As always, let me know if the pressure is

It helps a lot if you pull the shoulder back while you're working on it because it helps to release a little bit of the tension and a little bit of the pull and you just kind of come in and get a feel for where the tension is, get a feel for where the knots are and once you figure out where the knots are you can kind of get in into the individualized knots, grab ahold of them,
put pressure on them until they go away.

I also like to support the head with one side and stretch it with my thumb put my thumb up under the skull stretch the
neck down. As I'm stretching the neck, I'm massaging the muscles with the other side.

You can do that with your fingertips. You can also do it with your knuckles and then you just switch hands and do it on the other side one of the biggest things to remember with the neck is symmetry whatever you do on one side you need to do on the other or else you're going to leave them feeling grossly imbalanced and they'll kind of feel like their neck is pulling one direction.

The suboccipital muscles which are the eight little muscles up underneath the skull.

It's absolutely crucial that you work on those. A lot of people will stand in front of their clients and pull on the base of the
skull that's a great way to release the tension in those.

a lot of times I'll just move their head so that their movement is what's providing a lot of the pressure so you're not you're not wearing yourself out. You're not wearing your fingers out.

And then up in here right by the collarbone there's muscles that attach right there. A lot of people that complain of
headaches this is going to be a major spot for headaches. Just push and stretch.

Right below the jawbone, following the muscle fibers down always make sure that you communicate with your clients make sure that they're
comfortable with what you're doing.

And then the jawbone is prone to a lot of trigger points so it's always good.

There's lots of people that clench their jaws when they're working on a computer, lifting weights at the gym, sleeping, that
don't even know that they do it so they don't even realize that there's tension in their jaw and that will help release a lot of the tension that's caused in the neck as well in the neck and head.

Now where we do corporate massage, I don't very often work on the head because a lot of people are going back
to work and they don't want to walk out with their hair all crazy but I will ask especially if they've mentioned if they've had headaches I will ask if they want me to work on their head and if they do the temporalis muscle which is right in here is always a great place to start.

And you can get underneath their hair and do it without messing up their hair too much. Just small circular strokes just put apply your pressure with the pads of your fingers. And your small circular strokes.

Some people do not like head massages so always get permission before you work on them. unless you're poor Brooke, and then I just made you do it.

Saturday, February 10, 2018

2:22 PM

What is a chair massage?

What is a chair massage?
A chair massage is a 10, 15, 20 or 30 minute massage that focuses on the high tension areas of the neck, back, shoulders, arms and hands. The massage is performed on an ergonomically designed portable massage chair. Chair massage produces therapeutic results quickly by concentrating on the areas of greatest tension.

How long is a chair massage?
Massage therapists can address much more of the body in a 30 minute chair massage than they can get to in 15 minutes. So if your employees have neck issues and some lower back pain, this is the way to go

What are the benefits of a chair massage ?
Benefits of Chair Massage for Employees
  • Lowers anxiety.
  • Increases circulation.
  • Boosts immune system.
  • Lowers blood pressure.
  • Relieves muscle pains and headaches.
  • Decreases stress.
  • Improves sleep quality.
  • Generates more flexibility.
 What is a seated chair massage?
 Chair massage is a style of seated massage that is typically short -- 10 or 15 minutes -- and focuses on your back, shoulders and neck and arms. For chair massage, you are seated in a special chair with your face resting in a cradle, looking down towards the floor, with supports for your arms.

 How much does it cost to get a chair massage?
The real cost of chair massage. The range for corporate massage prices start at around $60 per hour per therapist up to around $100 per hour per therapist.


Do they use oils during the massage?No oils are used in chair massage. Sometimes a light and absorbent lotion is applied during hand massage. Please let your therapist know if you prefer no lotion, or have any medical conditions or allergies.