How to Instantly Improve at Massage

You don’t have to be a licensed masseuse to give someone a backrub. Massage is surprisingly easy and you can do it for your friends, family or even romantically.  Whoever you massage, there are a few basic things you can do to improve the experience.

A Word of Caution

Before considering massage, check whether there are any muscle or bone issues. Use caution, avoiding areas or even massage altogether if there are complaints or disease such as broken bones, sprains, osteoporosis as you may do more harm than good unless professionally trained. 

Also, never abuse the situation, even by tickling. The person you are massaging is trusting you with their body, respect that.

Practice on Yourself

I’m sure I’m not alone in having a back massage ending up with friction burn. To avoid making your friend wince learn how to massage on yourself and practise practise practise! This way you will be able to honestly give yourself feedback. Of course it is quite difficult to practise back massage on yourself but try giving yourself a hand or foot massage. Also, try different techniques to see what you enjoy, and notice where you tend to store all your tension.

Avoid Friction Burn

Back to the friction burn issue. The first thing to remember is that you don’t want to move over the skin with any pressure because that’s how friction burn occurs. What you want to do is move the skin itself over the muscles, but without stretching it painfully. The easiest way to demonstrate this is if you touch the back of your hand with a finger, apply gentle pressure and move it in small circles. Can you see the way the skin moves over the tendons within your hand? This is the technique you want to use in all your massaging to begin with although you will learn other techniques than circling as time goes on.

Massage Muscle

Remember the idea of massage is to relax tension within the muscles, not bones or tendons. In fact, tendon pinging can be quite ticklish or unpleasant for the person.   Make sure you know how muscles feel in comparison bone or tendons. Tilt your head slightly forward, reach up to the base of your neck, on the spine and feel how the bone feels compact, hard with no give in it. Then move slightly to one side, and feel how muscle, although it may feel hard, it has slight give in it. In the upper back, the bones you have are the shoulder blade, the spine, the ribs, and the collar bone is just forward of the shoulders. Some techniques require tapping or pummelling the back, however, remember NEVER EVER HIT THE SPINE.