Massage Continuing Education: Anatomy Review

By David Lauterstein, MTI, LMT, Co-founder of Lauterstein-Conway Massage School

A few years ago Lauterstein-Conway Massage School’s massage continuing education program had the fantastic experience of renting a bus and going to the Bodyworlds Exhibit in Houston. We took 50 massage therapists from Austin. Seeing the muscles in a life-like context is so valuable!

I have visited cadavers many times in San Antonio and San Marcos. It is a fascinating experience. However, the smell, the deadness of the cadaver, and the clinical coldness makes it a very mixed experience.

The new ways of showing life-like bodies in real life postures and without the discomfort of cadaver study have revolutionized anatomy. To see every single muscle you’ve ever studied (and maybe some you haven’t) is a revelation.

It’s as if you’ve been an anatomical agnostic until you’ve actually seen what a psoas looks like, how the connective tissues wrap around the brain, how the muscles of chest wall radiate up and become the scalenes, and how the deep lateral rotators are arranged around and through the pelvis.