What IS a Deep Tissue Massage?
People new to massage often ask, ‘What IS a deep tissue massage?’ They may envision a really firm massage, or a potentially painful treatment session, that borderlines on something approaching physical torture. Both of these can be true while leaving a lot of room for elaboration in between.
Ultimately, Deep Tissue massage is about affecting the deeper muscle compartments of the body. Imagine your muscles are layered atop each other much like layers of an onion. Firm pressure is typically used as a means of accessing those deeper areas.
Deep Tissue Work can help release and normalize disfunctioning tissue that may have occurred from exercise (hypertonicity), sustained poor posture (piloting a desk at work), or even something so simple as sleeping on an unsuitable mattress (too firm or too soft).
This disfunction can manifest as:
- Muscles “sticking” to each other called Adhesion.
- Tender spots that form within the muscle fibers which affect the region surrounding the muscle a.k.a. Trigger Points.
- Ischemia – a condition where blood circulation has been impaired from reaching muscle tissue.
Any of these symptoms alone can make for a miserable human being over time that, left untreated, can contribute to further stress, loss of sleep, tension headaches, or impairing recovery time between gym visits.
A Deep Tissue session requires both the client and the therapist to communicate their intention and expectation. This means establishing a threshold of what the client can handle and cannot handle from a raw pressure standpoint. Similar to a pain scale of 1 to 10. A given client’s threshold can be completely different from the next client. Communication is key to help ensure the treatment is facilitating the body’s recovery vs damaging the tissue which can prolong the recovery process.
Outside of using firm pressure during treatment, there are other elements that can enhance the session such as:
- Feathering in the modalities of Sports Massage (stretching)
- Myofascial Release (slow, soft melting of the thin connective tissue casing system throughout the body)
- Relaxation techniques like effleurage (long, flowing strokes of light to medium pressure) and petrissage (soft tissue kneading).
Clients more often than not, are coming into a session with a “hit list” of issues that need to be addressed. Massage therapists then draw from their tool kit the above mentioned modality tools to apply as needed. I have found consistent success from approaching Deep Tissue treatment this way and my returning clients appreciate leaving their sessions feeling treated vs. “Being mauled by a bear.”
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Are you ready to release tension and book your massage? Visit Phoenix-Integrative Massage at Vagaro and get started today.