THE TYRANNY OF THE BACK – A RANT
My wife and I got massages at a very nice spa last night. We each signed up for 1.5 hour deep tissue. What we got is about 60 minutes on the back, relatively little work on the rest of the body.
Therapists, maybe some clients, want only back, shoulder and neck work. And maybe some schools teach this way of working. And we need to respond to that. But better knowledge tells us that in many cases these days the client doesn’t know best. And we need to start educating ourselves, our clients and our employers out of this dysfunctional belief.
If you are working efficiently with the back it doesn’t need more than 30 minutes of work, if you are truly efficient often 20 minutes will do. It reminds me of Bruce Lee who said, “Any fight that last longer than 15 seconds is a fight being fought by incompetents.”
Any back and neck work that last longer than 30 minutes often tells me the therapist has never learned to work efficiently.
The lower body is the support and foundation for the upper. You can’t effect deep change without good solid work on the lower body. The gluts (often left out entirely), thighs, lower legs, and the feet need as much tender, thoughtful, detailed attention as the back. 10 minutes each is minimum!
The abdomen and chest are the front of the back. Yet how many times these are left out entirely! You cannot address forward flexion of the torso without getting length and working well and systematically with rectus abdominis and pectoralis major.
Time required min. 5 minutes.
Then the arms and the hands, the face and cranium – often left out or addressed a bit as an afterthought. These need at least 10 minutes to be well addressed.
So what I recommend is getting advanced training in massage and anatomy so that you can organize your sessions generally more like this:
20 minutes of really good, efficient back, shoulders, neck work
20 minutes pelvis, legs and feet
5 minutes abdomen and front torso
10 minutes arms, hands, neck, face and head.
That’s 55 minutes!
If you have no idea how to work that way, honestly I invite you to study with me.
And, by the way, stop slopping oil on people like they need baths in grease.
EOR
“end of rant”