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Guidelines: How to Study and Learn Medical Massage

Dear Friends, It’s hard to believe, but already more than a year has passed since I released the first 5 volumes of my “Medical Massage” DVD series collection. Today there are a total of 12 volumes available. Using this opportunity I would like to thank you for purchasing my DVDs, and to express my sincere gratitude for the many warm e-mails, testimonials etc. Please feel free to continue to write to me with your questions, commentary and other suggestions. The collection is an encyclopedia of massage therapy and practically covers the whole “Medical Massage” scope of practice (around 60 topics). Therefore I decided to write a set of guidelines to aid the viewer to learn from my DVDs to the maximum extent. But that is not to say that these guidelines only apply to learning from the DVDs. They can also be useful in learning medical massage in the classroom.

1.) We must accept the fundamental understanding that massage therapy is about results.

2.) We must remember to perform every second of touch with meaning while keeping in mind that the meaning of our touch serves the therapeutic goals. Well served goals leads to results such as less pain, more range of motion, and less suffering from the side effects of stress. Simultaneous with hands-on demonstration in my DVD, I give detailed explanation of abnormalities as well as the goals of each technique. Please pay careful attention to the details. The message is in the details.

3.) Every time we come to the treatment table to perform massage whether it be orthopedic, full body stress management, sports or chair massage, the purposes and goals of the treatment must be 100% clear to us. For example: our established goals of a 10-15 minute chair massage treatment is to reduce the side effects of stress to the maximum extent given the allotted time. For this case we firstly consider the fact that most of humans carry stress in the form of higher resting muscular tonus in the neck and upper back. Therefore the goal of the treatment will be to stimulate muscles to induce reflexive relaxation, followed by vascular dilation, decrease in cardiac work, and decrease of stress hormone production. We must keep in mind our possessed knowledge about the physiological effect of the step by step, hands on protocol for stress management chair massage and the inhibitory regime approach. This mix of knowledge and understanding also enables us to adjust our energy status to the condition that will help us to reach better results. Every one of my DVDs as well my articles that can be found on websites of distributors, contains literature with detailed explanation of the physiological effect of massage, the inhibitory regime and other details. I highly recommend studying the material until you gain a deep understanding. I recommend carefully viewing DVD volume 10, where I explain the mechanism of medical massage in detail, and how the science of massage helps us to understand the energy work that must be part of the physical treatment. Additionally, the understanding of energy (Chi) manipulation will help you to protect your personal energy status from being interrupted or disturbed by your clients. On each DVD, in fine detail, I talk about of causes of abnormalities, goals of the treatment, etc. Please pay attention to these details.

4.) In order to become better practitioners we have to adopt the idea that massage therapy is a simple but very powerful method of treatment, and in order to advance we must understand more than simply memorize the material. I highly recommend reading my article “Keep it Simple” that can be found on our web site. As you know, one’s mindset is crucial to increasing the natural capability to learn and understand material. Therefore, when studying these DVDs, try to direct your mind toward discovering the simplicity of medical massage and its power. Setting your mind to taking in the understanding of medical massage will help you learn the proposed material much better. For example, a person watches as I perform the techniques, and hears me giving explanation; if this person’s mindset will be only that the protocols are difficult and unachievable, it will make learning seem impossible for him/her. Or if this person’s only focus is to (unnecessarily) try to identify and note every muscle, tendon or other anatomical structure in a region I am massaging, it will block his/her mind from real understanding. But if this person’s mindset is adjusted to consider that medical massage is a simple and very powerful method, he/she will immediately be able to adopt the details, copy the movements and rhythmus of technique performances, and will be able to study and learn to the maximum extent.

5.) We all agree that the practitioner considered as “better” is the one who is capable of delivering faster and sustained results. No one will argue that a higher level of sense of touch is one of the factors setting apart the good massage therapists from the less good. Sense of touch is our capability to see with our hands what eyes cannot see. In other words the understanding of physiology, structural anatomy, physiological effect and more, must be adopted to the level of the imagination. It is for this reason that I highly recommend carefully studying DVD volume 10 as well as the related articles of mine. I strongly believe that this will help you to understand the simplicity, power and extensive usefulness of medical massage. As I stated before, it is the understanding that makes the crucial difference in delivering results.

6.) During the DVDs’ production I basically stood on the front of the video camera and passionately packed each DVD with material. On many of my DVDs topics within one volume are not related and have to be studied separately. I highly recommend carefully viewing each topic separately numerous times, paying attention to my explanation at the time of hands-on performance, as well as taking notes. When it comes time for you to perform the first few initial hands-on applications on real clients, I recommend using these notes and /or my typed material.

7.) It is very important to follow the protocol in the manner as I proposed on my DVDs. Reading my article “Does Sport Massage Contribute to Athlete’s Recovery?” will help you to understand the importance of protocol guidelines. Please keep in mind that all protocols that I proposed to you on my DVDs were developed by scientists using true double blind studies, which means that these protocols where tested against placebo. Application of medical statistic at the time of the studies insuring us that method not only effective but also safe.

8.) It is important for a practitioner to understand in detail the importance of repeated treatments, as well to inform clients on the importance of it. In order to reach sustained results “series of treatments” approach must be adopted by each massage therapist. More than this, I believe that each of us must, as a part of treatment plan, introduce the clients to the theory that will explain and support the importance of repeated treatment. In my opinion the theoretical aspects of abnormalities that our clients suffer from, as well as the goals and therapeutic aspects of massage therapy must be introduced to the clients in a simple, concise and uncomplicated way. For example: a client who is suffering from fibromyalgia has to be explained that all abnormalities that initiated their symptoms such as pain all over the body, clinical depression, headaches etc, began on the level of muscles and have to be treated on the level of muscles. Clients have to be briefed that due to hormone imbalance, physical and/or psychological trauma, allergic reaction to toxins, etc., muscles all over the body started to accumulate tension to the point that microcirculation was disturbed and as a result, the pain analyzing system was activated resulting in a pain sensation. It is very important to inform your clients that prolonged disturbances of blood supply (disturbances of local metabolisms) can cause calcium deposits in soft tissue. These calcium deposits have a consistency like an egg shell, and contained heavy polymolecular structure which prevents this metabolic waste product from being removed from the body. Repeated massage treatments allows us to mechanically break down these pathological accumulations, to stimulate breakdown of monomolecular structure and further to be removed from the body. Elimination of soft tissue calcifications contributes to restoration of elasticity within muscles and connective tissues which in turn will allow normal blood supply, increased range of motion etc. Normalization of blood supply will decrease significant pain sensation. It is also very important to inform our clients that constant irritation (bombarding) of the central nervous system by constant low grade pain causes a decrease of the amount and activities of serotonin, which is a neurotransmitter responsible for our waking status. Decreased quantities of serotonin result in clinical depression. With decreased bombarding of central nervous system by low-grade pain, the level and activities of serotonin can be restored and experiences of depression symptoms can be significantly decreased. If fibromyalgia is a result of hormone imbalance our clients must be informed that in most cases massage therapy and special exercise program (exercise has to be performed in slow motion manner and in no case should be done in a "no pain no gain” approach) must be a constant for controlling the symptoms. Clients have to be informed that in most cases hormone imbalance, when once present, will in many cases cause gradual accumulation of higher tonus in muscles. For this reason, receiving massage therapy on a weekly basis is not only to stimulate normalization of metabolism within soft tissue, but also to break down the vicious cycle of re-accumulation of muscular tonus that causes micro-circulation disturbances, resulting in pain, and if left to become chronic, possibly leading to development of depression etc. On each of my DVDs, in extended format, I explain the etiology, morphology of the pathologies as well as the importance of repeated treatment. I highly recommend extracting information on each topic in a similar way as I introduced in the case of fibromyalgia. By providing this written material to your clients, you make them a full partner in stimulation of healing processes in their body. Additionally, I believe that the formation of a handout of short information will further contribute to your understanding of the topics.

As I stated in the beginning, understanding and not memorization of the material will lead you to becoming the therapist that delivers results. Remember, massage therapy is about results. If you will have additional questions or suggestions, please feel free to write to me.

Sincerely,
Boris Prilutsky, MA