Sep
5
2023
Structural Bodywork by John Smith
Providing an advanced introduction to the field of structural bodywork, this valuable resource combines coverage of both skills and theory into one comprehensive guide to this specialized form of bodywork practice. Featuring numerous illustrations with photographs and drawings, it provides extensive information on the theory of structural bodywork related to human anatomy and clinical presentations. Focusing on issues related to dysfunctions of structure, posture, and gait, this reader-friendly text also discusses the background of structural bodywork, how it has developed, and how it is understood today.
Features
* Content is highly readable, academically sound, and grounded firmly in bodywork practice.
* Previously unrelated theories are discussed and applied to practice.
* The well-known theories of Rolf and Feldenkrais are reviewed.
* A comprehensive practical manual section provides numerous techniques and models for a variety of musculoskeletal skeletal problems.
* Numerous illustrations provide a better understanding of text content.
This book is available from: http://www.terrarosa.com.au/book/structural_bodywork.htm
Sep
5
2023
Massage Therapy Can Decrease Pain
GLENVIEW, IL, Aug. 15, 2008—For those who experience lingering pain following exercise, a relaxing deep massage can help relieve musculoskeletal pain associated with exercise-induced pain, according to research reported in The Journal of Pain.
Researchers at the University of Iowa performed a double-blinded, randomized controlled trial to study the effects of massage on pressure-pain thresholds and perceived pain using delayed muscle soreness following exercise as the pain measurement. Trial participants were divided into three groups: no-treatment (control), superficial touch and deep tissue massage. Pain was assessed before treatment, after exercise and before and after treatment.
Massage has been used for rehabilitation and relaxation for thousands of years with no adverse effects. Unfortunately, few well-controlled trials of massage exist either in clinical or experimentally induced pain populations. The purpose for the study, therefore, was to determine the effects of massage using an endogenous muscle-pain model in otherwise healthy individuals.
The authors found that subjects given deep-tissue massage were able to increase their pain thresholds and decrease stretch pain compared with the no-treatment group. When combining the deep-tissue massage and light-touch groups, they found that stretch-pain reductions remained significantly better than in the control group although the light-touch treatment was not significantly better than no treatment.
The authors concluded that their study demonstrates that soft-tissue massage can reduce hyperalgesia and pain using a delayed onset muscle soreness model. The findings support use of massage to reduce stretch-pain perception and hyperalgesia.
Source: Massage Reduces Pain Perception and Hyperalgesia in Experimental Muscle Pain: A randomized, Controlled Trial; Laura A. Frey Law, Stephanie Evans, Jill Knudson, Steven Nus, Kerri Scholl and Kathleen Sluka; University of Iowa, Program in Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Science.
Sep
5
2023
At a spa–carnivorous plant farm in northern Israel, you can get a snake massage for just $80. Spa mistress Ada Barak came up with the idea after visitors who came to scope out her carnivorous plants (which eat schnitzel, among other things) enjoyed the sensation of holding the garden snakes she’d pass around after the tour. For the snake massage, she basically plops a mass of entwined snakes of various sizes on your stomach and lets them slither all over you. This is supposed to have “calming and curative effects.” Time sent a writer to try out this treatment. “After some experimenting” Barak perfected her treatment with a combination of big snakes which produce a kneading sensation and little snakes “whose passage over the skin is a trembling flutter.” How big is big?
Just as I am psyching myself up for the treatment, I see one of the little snakes, with a string of brick-colored diamonds along its spine, open its mouth impossibly wide. Is it going to strike? No — it coughs up a half-digested mouse, leading me to assume that the snake is as queasy about giving me a massage as I am about getting one.
Wow, gross? To top that off, once the snakes get to work, one nibbles on the subject’s eyelashes. The writer emerges from the “massage” feeling “relaxed and curiously lightheaded.” You know, if snakes that ate mice had a nibble of our eyelashes from the comfort of our stomach, we’d feel a little lightheaded, too.
http://nymag.com/daily/fashion/2008/09/the_latest_spa_craze_snake_mas.html
Sep
5
2023
Taiwan set a World Record recently by arranging for 1008 people to have a foot massage simultaneously. The event was organized by the Taiwan tourism bureau and four Taiwan reflexology associations.
The years 2008 and 2009 had been designated as the “Tour Taiwan Years.” The Tourism Bureau has been planning a wide variety of exciting events and popular tourist attractions to draw more international visitors to Taiwan, and one of its new ideas is health care tourism.
Tourists who volunteered for the event came from various countries, including Japan, Korea, Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong etc. The tourists lied back on reclining chairs at the Taipei Area stadium for 40 minutes of foot massage, or reflexology treatment, given by 1,008 masseurs.
Foot massage is popular in Taiwan. In large cities in Taiwan, there are many foot massage parlours which charge 500 Taiwan dollars (15 US dollars) for 50 minutes of foot massage, which can relieve fatigue and has therapeutic effects for certain illnesses.
The previous world record stood at 200 reflexologists with the same number of tourists.
http://www.worldrecordsacademy.org/mass/most_people_having_foot_massage-world_record_set_by_Taiwan_80290.htm
