Body Mechanics Body Mechanics Body Mechanics

It’s thrown around as THE answer for all injury, burnout, or bad days a massage therapist may experience. There are a lot of strong feelings when it comes to body mechanics: do you lower or raise your table, do you avoid thumbs or use them braced, and what about using bolsters? As in everything massage, it depends on your body and your client’s body.

In truth, we would have the ability to raise or lower our tables with the push of a button, but those tables cost thousands of dollars, and changing your table height for each client is not a practical suggestion for bodyworkers. If you have a client that makes staying with the following principles more difficult, it would be good to make a note on their file that they need a special table height. Otherwise, finding a way to achieve the following will ensure you keep yourself as protected as possible.

A final note before I get listing, on average 70% of bodyworkers will experience injury. I don’t think it’s healthy to pretend like injury is something that will never happen. We should be prepared for the day when we will have to work through an injury. I’ll provide some adaptations along the way for that day.

1: Get OVER your hands - You need to stop muscling your techniques and learn to LEAN. Get comfortable with giving your body weight to your hands/forearm/knuckles, whatever is touching the client. Practice with an empty table, leaning into your hands, giving your body that proprioceptive awareness that you can recall during the massage and try to emulate. The more practice you have leaning in, dropping into your hips, sinking into the tissues, the easier it is with a body.

2: Get CLOSER to the table - This is the biggest issue I see with most therapists, they are leaving a good 3-6 inch gap between their body and the client’s. Of course, we don’t want to be leaning ON our client, and really avoid even touching other parts of your body to the client as that can send mixed signals, but you have to get closer. When you are facing your client, open your hips, point your toes out, and scoot in. When you are facing the direction of movement alongside your client, lean your torso over your client, get your shoulder over your hands. Gravity is our most underutilized tool in massage.

3: ADAPT - Utilize your stool and figure out how to do some of your techniques seated. Massaging seated still requires good form: sit near the edge of the seat, let your pelvis tip down, knees below hips, spine erect, etc, but you may be able to save some energy throughout your day. There are a few places during the massage you can use the table itself to lean against, taking the weight off your lower back, as long as you aren’t touching your client that is a safe way to use the table.

4: STAY MINDFUL - No matter how long you’ve been working, we all need to remember to stay in conversation with bodies as they will tell us when something doesn’t feel right. That little ache, twinge, or just “off” feeling can remind you to investigate your stance, notice what feels strained, and adapt to modify and take pressure off that area. 

Every person’s body is shaped differently, with different lengths of arms, legs, torsos, and neck. What works for one person may end up injuring another. The ability to stay mindful and connected to your body during the session, the willingness to adapt and change as your body tells you it needs to, and staying open and curious, always looking to make whatever technique you’re doing, 10% easier, these will all strengthen your foundation and lengthen your career.