Hi I like to welcome you to back rub for beginners. My name is Chris and I am a massage therapy instructor with Carrington College. Today we’re, going to show you a basic back, massage sequence, that’s designed for couples that you can do in the comfort of your own home.
Now, as you can see, we are using a massage table today, but certainly any soft firm surface that you can use at home would be great, so we’re, going to start off with what we call a figure eight. This is a nice starting delighting stroke that we’re going to do so.
I’m gonna put a little oil in my hands and we’re, going to start out light, so we can make sure we spread the oil evenly and as the oil spreads evenly, we’ll begin to firm. Our pressure up and make sure we’re covering the entire back area.
As you can see, I’m. Doing a figure. Eight motion here also notice. As I’m doing, is I’m moving, my body. I’m, not just moving my arms. So if you’re on the floor, doing this massage it’s, all about making sure you are moving your body through these movements and not just using the arms.
Let your body move from side to side a little bit now, when you’re deciding on a particular oil to use, and there’s, a lot of great massage oils out there. You do want to pick a good one. You don’t want some that’s, going to be too greasy or it’s, going to evaporate too quickly.
Alright, so now that we have this area warmed up a little bit with our figure eight, we’ll, move right into our next gliding stroke, up the back around the shoulder and back down again it’s. All about a nice continuous motion, again, I’m leaning, my body weight here into the back.
I’m leaning forward by moving my legs. Certainly, if you’re on the floor, you want to do the same thing. You don’t want to just reach your arms forward and stretch out your back. Let your body move with your hand, motion and we’ll.
Do a nice gliding stroke! If you want to even go a little deeper, we can even use our knuckles kind of saves our wrist a little bit and we can work up and around the spine around the shoulder. The same way now keep in mind if you’re using the knuckles, be careful of the bony landmarks that are in the back the spine, the shoulder blade.
So, as you kind of come up here to the shoulder, blades be careful not to press on those bony structures very deeply, and after we do a nice deep gliding stroke, we’re, going to do what’s called a petrissage stroke, Which is a kneading stroke and we’re, going to need the muscles side to side along the spine here along the muscles of the spine again a side-to-side motion all right.
Now we did some kneading, we can kind of come up and what are going to need around the shoulders. This is a great technique where we hold a lot of our tension, so we’re, going to grab that upper shoulder muscle.
This is called the trapezius muscle and we’re just going to knead that a little bit you can adjust the pressure according to their comfort level. Here this could be a little tender on some people because we get we hold a lot of our attention here and then some is I like to come in here and even use my other hand to help push my thumb into the tissue that just kind of Saves your thumb a little bit, so you’re, not overworking your thumb.
It’s all about using the right techniques and the right body mechanics now from there. We might come in with our fingertips and use our fingers to create a nice circular motion around that same area of the body.
Again, I’m kind of rocking into it. A little bit here, moving my body with my arms and hands, and I’m, also changing up my body parts from palms to knuckles to thumbs to fingers. So we don’t over tire, any one particular area.
Now from there we’re, going to finish off with just a nice gliding shirt. Again we’re, going to come back and glide up the spine one more time. These nice long flowing strokes and then what you would do from there is do the exact same thing to the other side and when we finish what I like to do to finish is come back to that same technique that we started with that figure-eight.
So once we’ve done the other side we come back. Do a nice figure, 8 technique kind of just ties it all together. Let your partner know that we’re about to close up the massage, bring in a back full circle.
Again, some nice long strokes all around the back making that figure 8 motion and then, when you’re all done, we can then cover up our client, keep them nice and warm and let them kind of enjoy that experience that they just had with.
With those massage techniques, so as you can see with the right techniques and the right binding mechanics, you can perform a massage safely and effectively in the comfort of your own home. That’s, going to make your partner feel good, but also not put any undue stress on you.
This will be a great rewarding experience for the two of you. Thank you for watching you. You
