Have you ever gone to get a massage and the therapist tells you that you need 1.5 hour massages twice a week and you had to ask yourself “ Is this person joking? “ I don’t have time to be getting 1.5 hour massages every week.”
There is a big controversy out in the massage therapy field regarding the length of time and length of the massage necessary to accomplish certain results for the client. If you have ever worked out with a trainer, you might have heard a similar speech about how often and how long to work out for changing body shape and how often to maintain your current health status. Massage therapy and personal trainers have one very important characteristic in common. When you work with either one or both us we are both trying to change the structure of your muscles to work for you rather than against you. You will get the best results when doing both together; however, in order to accomplish this, you must know what rules to follow.
Each day, when using your muscles, weather you are in a gym or taking a leisurely stroll in your local mall, your muscles are at work. Your core muscles and your spinal muscles are hard at work to try and keep your body upright, while your respiratory muscles are working hard to bring in oxygen and release carbon dioxide out of your system. Typically your trainer will train the opposing muscle groups being used on the regular basis to make sure your body stabilizes itself correctly. The massage therapist in return will work on the current muscles being used to make sure you get a better work out with your trainer.
So here are some common rules when you ask yourself when enough is enough? The following is a 1 hour length. If there are the same concerns with multiple areas, you might want to consider adding on a half hour.
- 1x/ month -You are currently happy with your general health and lifestyle. You body’s main concern would be to keep circulation up and decrease toxin build up.
- 2x/month (every other week) -Your body is in relatively good shape. There is an area or two that gets sore every once in a while, your career is very high stress, or your body takes heavy impacts daily.
- 4x/month (1x per week)- Your body is in relatively good shape but after a long week of work. You feel sore all over. Sometimes you lose range of motion, you get headaches semi regularly. You seem to get tingling in arms or legs for no reason regularly.
- 8x/month (2x/week) High stress, high adrenaline, emotional conditions, regular body pains, conditions such as arthritis, gastritis, and leg cramps, or heavy loss of range of motion.
- 3x/week is for anything excessive, post – surgical (after 6 weeks), complete loss of range of motion, daily aches and pains that seem to not be going away to the point you are getting used to having pain. Regular headaches, jaw pain, high stress with lack of sleep accompanied with it. Postural back pain that bothers you daily.
Thank you for reading. If you are interested in learning about any other topics, please email ThereseI@NutriFormance.com
