Table Of ContentHow To Fix Pain
Using Massage and
Bodywork.
By
Steve Lockhart
http://www.learnmassage.com.au
Published by:
S.J.Lockhart Pty Ltd.
P.O.Box 5761
Q Supercentre
Queensland 4218
Australia.
© 2007 S. J Lockhart
All rights reserved.
Notice of rights
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the
publisher.
INTRODUCTION
The world is constantly evolving. Right now people are doing more at a
faster pace and leading more stressful lives, doing catch up exercise after
sitting at a desk all day and consuming fast food far too often for one main
reason, because it saves time.
As a consequence of this, one industry that is growing at a faster rate than
most is health, especially the area of treating pain and injury and taking
stress from the body.
Traditionally Physiotherapy or Physical therapy (PT) and to some extent
Chiropractic have been the better known methods of treatment for people
who suffer from pain for many years now. People are usually referred by
their doctor, giving these modalities a decided advantage over other methods
they compete with, but in recent years that domination is being eroded away
because of two important reasons.
Firstly, both Chiropractic and PT often fail to provide the lasting results, or
in many cases any result, (see this study for proof )
http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/180_02_190104/bog10461_fm.html
and secondly, there is an ever increasing number of new therapy options
popping up that are competing strongly for the work as people search to find
something that will work to take away their pain.
This new order are slowly watering down the dominance of the more
established ones and as time goes on the battle for supremacy in this part of
the multi billion dollar health industry continues to heat up.
To the average man in the street the competition for the business is not
important, what is however is finding a fast and effective solution for their
pain that will allow them to get back to doing the things they want to do.
For the therapist who can consistently provide these results: there is
abundant regular work providing a good steady income, plus an ability to
work the hours and location of their choosing.
Whether it’s running a large clinic or a one man operation out of their own
home it doesn’t matter, because the therapist who can provide spectacular
results can pick and choose and the people will be happy to fit in.
Being very proficient at diagnosing and fixing pain provides a sound, secure,
well paid, long term career or great part time income so long as the patient’s
single most important criteria is met, fast and effective pain relief.
For therapists who don’t possess a high level of skill, work is harder to find,
advertising costs eat into the weekly income and choosing a more prominent
and expensive location becomes much more of a necessity.
As the population ages and this industry starts to boom, many businesses see
the $$dollar$$ signs and everywhere you look, bodywork or manual therapy
courses are being offered. They all make big promises about the skills they
can pass on to students, for fees that are often way too high for what you get.
Colleges have sprung up everywhere churning out hundreds of ‘qualified’
therapists every year, to supply this booming growth industry. But when all
is said and done most people graduate without many of the practical skills
they really need to succeed or the important marketing skills required that
will give them an edge at capturing a decent slice of the work that is
available. Without these two critical components mastered, the job of
building a successful practice becomes much more difficult and alas for
many, impossible.
For the new student contemplating a career in this field, the amount of
choice is scary. Off the top of my head I can think of over a dozen massage
therapy/ bodywork type styles you can learn, such as Alexander technique,
Aromatherapy, Body Harmony, Core Energetics, Hellerwork, Feldenkrais,
Rolfing, Bowen therapy, Shiatsu, Acupressure, Myotherapy, Myofascial
Release, Myopractic and of course the many different massage styles within
those broad categories like Remedial, Sports, Swedish, Therapeutic or Deep
Tissue, Chinese, Thai, Indian Head etc.
Then of course there are the more established ‘professional’ qualifications
like Physiotherapy, Chiropractic, Osteopathy or Acupuncture, plus other
lesser known styles.
Although they all make similar claims as to the effectiveness of their
method, most offer very little after training support or business building
assistance for the student to combine with the limited manual skills they
deliver.
As a result, many graduates end up working for a more savvy business
minded therapist, being paid 30 to 50% of what they could earn on their own
and without even the basic skills required to maintain their own body and
survive what can be a demanding career plagued with injury to the hands,
back, shoulders and thumbs.
By the time most graduates find out there is a lot more required to becoming
a successful therapist than simply getting a certificate and opening a clinic, it
is too late and in this very competitive field, many go out of business before
they really get started.
So how is a student therapist expected to decide which therapy method is
going to give them all the skills and support they need when starting a career
in this industry, so that they don’t end up graduating confused and
disillusioned.
This is the multi million dollar question!
Because of the many choices for new students, much due diligence needs to
be done. They need to be aware that what you get from these courses is not
always what is promised.
Doing a few basic checks before committing to the cost and time of a
training program is really good advice and this can be done quite easily with
some simple firection. For example having a few treatments from past
graduates of the course you are considering, both to ask some questions
about it and experience first hand the level of skill you can expect to achieve
on graduation, is one important first step.
Many of the colleges offer student massage as part of the course hours and
anyone can attend for a discount massage. This small amount of effort and
expense is well worth the frustration it can save later when it is really a bit
late to change your mind, especially if your training takes many months or
years to complete.
Spending an hour on the massage table asking the right questions can reveal
much more than reading any brochure put out by the school on the virtues of
their training.
The reality is that being really successful at fixing pain using massage and
bodywork is a rare talent rather than the norm and much more difficult than
many text books or course sales material would have you believe. You only
have to look at how many chronic pain sufferers are still out there searching
for a solution and not finding it to realise that.
Generally, a student will only be as good as their teacher, at least to start
with, and so if the teacher has their own practice another really good idea
would be to visit them for some treatment where possible, before handing
over your money and signing up for them to train you.
It is called doing due diligence and it’s an important step to take before
handing over money for anything you are investing in, especially career
training.
WHAT IS REQUIRED FOR FIXING PAIN.
As mentioned already, accurately diagnosing and fixing pain is a rare talent
and not something the average therapist learns how to do properly. Most
teachers can’t do it so it is only natural to assume that their students won’t
graduate with that skill either.
If you are not experienced with having pain or can only relate to what you
read in advertisements for different therapies then you might be surprised by
that statement, but I can assure you it is very true. Of all the things medical
science has achieved over the years, successfully dealing with chronic pain
is one area they have made very little headway at all. In fact I’d even go as
far to say they have gone backwards over the past 50 years because they
have introduced machines and surgery to do a job that can only really be
done properly with skilled hands.
Not only have people increased the pressure on their body enormously with
body building, fitness programs and sports, but they have combined that
with much lower nutrition levels and a more sedentary lifestyle for the
majority of their day.
The big mistake most therapy’s make in their approach to fixing pain is that
they only focus on the area of the body that hurts. They treat symptoms,
looking at the body as a sum of parts working independently of each other
rather than as a whole where every different part of the body is working in
unison.
When you think about it, this is the approach of probably every form of
therapy you can think of, especially conventional medicine. Doctors
prescribe a drug for s symptom. Physiotherapy advocates things like ice, a
manipulation, stretching or strengthening the area where the symptom is felt.
A chiropractor or Osteopath adjusts a joint where the symptom is felt or
triggered from. A masseur rubs the area that feels tight or sore and doesn’t
know what to do if there is nerve involvement, so refers back to the Doctor,
Physiotherapist or chiropractor. And so the cycle continues and the poor
pain sufferer keeps pouring money in to keep the wheels turning.
The fact that the body is connected and one area relies on all other areas in
every way for both movement and support seems lost and the person new to
this industry doing their first course is indoctrinated the same way.
To pause and illustrate this very important point try this. Whilst sitting in
your chair reach slowly to one side and pick something up that is just out of
reach. Be conscious of all the muscles in your body and the way they work
together to perform the action. Notice how even though you are using your
shoulder and arm for the exercise the muscles in your leg brace to anchor
your position as your weight moves off centre.
So what is actually happening here and how does this relate to fixing pain in
the body?
In the same way our weight shifts around different muscles as we move,
tensions in different muscles heighten to compensate movements we find
painful or difficult.
When a body develops a problem in any one area, usually one of the many
joints, that joint becomes weakened or painful and less able to cope with the
normal pressure it can carry. This causes other parts of the body to start to
compensate for it which leads to the mechanics of the body becoming
affected and the muscle system becoming unbalanced.
Pains that occur in the body are directly linked to these imbalances and they
can’t be properly dealt with until the imbalances are removed and the correct
mechanics of the body is restored. This should be the primary focus of any
therapist in the work they are doing and therefore form the basis of any
course teaching bodywork.
A pretty obvious assessment I’m sure you would agree, but one that is very
rarely taught in the massage or bodywork courses that are available. And
even when it is covered, it invariable it doesn’t include techniques that are
effective enough to permanently fix a problem.
Everybody knows that not every therapy works for every person in every
situation which means one of the therapist’s key skills should be to know
which techniques, exercises and lifestyle changes are required to treat a
particular individual’s problem.
To do this properly, a therapist needs to have a good understanding of the
different options that are available and what sort of results each one will be
able to achieve. Similar to what you would expect a G.P. to do rather than
simply hand out a drug prescription.
The best massage or bodywork courses will cover these things in great detail
and leave the therapist with no doubts as to what is needed in each of the
different pain scenarios that can present in a clinic situation.
It is therefore important for potential therapists or students to be aware of
this and look into how thoroughly a course they are considering to study
covers it. Once they have graduated and are out there trying to achieve
results with clients in pain, it is a bit late to be finding out about the
inadequacies of their training.
Most courses in manual therapies teach a very standardised approach for
treating each of the different pains people could be suffering from. It tends
to be about isolating individual muscles through testing range of movement
and treating the area where the symptom is felt. This procedure is common
across the board with both conventional and alternative therapies.
Ideally they would cover the different possibilities and for each condition
and the important steps to follow, to enable an accurate diagnosis of the real
cause of someone’s pain. That way as a therapist, you would be able to
customise what you are doing for each individual and their particular
problem.
It is often a case of: if they don’t fit the standard mould, refer them to their
doctor which effectively puts them on a medical merry go round of drugs,
PT and in many cases surgery, all of which are often unnecessary, often
ineffective and rarely in the best interests of the patient.
Description:Rolfing, Bowen therapy, Shiatsu, Acupressure, Myotherapy, Myofascial Release, Myopractic and of course the many different massage styles within
