Welcome to Massage Yourself – Self-massage of muscles, tendons and ligaments.
Massage Yourself is a book that is concerned with self-treatment, self-help and personal empowerment. It describes a remedial massage system where you massage yourself.
The self-massage techniques described in this book can be used proactively to build better structural integrity in the body and help prevent musculoskeletal problems or they can be used in response to illness and dysfunction to treat musculoskeletal problems. The techniques can be used by the layperson when done proactively but when there is a health problem that needs fixing and an accurate diagnosis is required then they should be part of a regime supervised by a qualified health professional.
Self-massage gives you independence and allows you to choose when and where you do the massaging. Once learned self-massage can be used safely at home. It gives you control over the amount of force to use and how long to hold the pressure. And because you can feel the tissue that you are massaging, this feedback allows you to move your applicator to exactly the right place, the tissue that hurts the most, which is usually the source of the problem. Self-massage gives you time to relax the muscle before removing the applicator pressure and moving on to another area. You can back-off if the muscle is going into spasm or too painful or increase the pressure if it is easy to let go of the muscle tension. Your ability to relax effectively depends on your skill level and the the more you do the self-massage techniques the better you become at letting go of the muscle. Self-massage can complement treatment, remove the need for treatment, reduce treatment time and improve the health and efficiency of your muscles, tendons and ligaments without the need for expensive equipment.
An applicator is a part of your hand or another part of your body or a massage tool. There are many different applicators used in this book but here are some of them: 1. The tip of your thumb 2. One fingertip, usually the tip of your index finger 3. The tips of your index, middle and ring fingers together 4. The tip or outside of your thumb, in opposition with and the tips of one or two fingers using a grasping, push-pull action. Massage tools are also used to increase leverage and apply force on a muscle, tendon or ligament. The three main massage tools used in this book are two rubber balls in a net, a tightly rolled-up towel and the wadi.
Massage Yourself is comprehensive and concise. It contains a list of safe and effective massage techniques, and it focuses on specific areas of the body and targets specific muscles and muscle groups without unnecessary repetition. It covers several types of technique but the two most used are kneading and friction. The book explains which soft tissues are being massaged, where they are located, which part of your hand or massage tool is best to use and how to do the massage technique.
Massage Yourself is clear, easy to read, user friendly and contains hundreds of photographs and line drawings showing massage techniques for every part of the body, as well as anatomy illustrations explaining which muscles are being massaged. The bullet points take you through the techniques step-by-step.
Self-massage works well with manual therapies and medicine in general. The techniques can be used prescriptively for a wide range of problems encountered by the therapist. It is especially useful when lots of short sessions of treatment are needed but are inconvenient for the patient. A patient can be working on his or her problem between treatments. Working from home can be so much easier and time saving.
Massage Yourself is suitable for beginners interested in learning the techniques and professionals who want techniques that will help their patients. The book is useful for anyone who works with their own body including manual workers, musicians, dancers, yoga students, personal trainers, sports coaches, athletes and sports people. It is also useful for anyone who works on other people’s bodies including masseurs, osteopaths, physiotherapists, chiropractors, manual therapists, yoga teachers, naturopaths, medical doctors, exercise physiologists, Pilates and aerobics teachers.
Massage Yourself is available as an eBook or as a printed book from all major bookshops or as a video eBook directly from the shop on this website.
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