Massage therapists are those people who give treatment to patients. Many times the therapists feel tired after giving a couple of shiatsu massage therapies. This happens because they don’t use their body weight correctly when applying the pressure on the meridians. A master therapist uses correctly the body weight and the gravity to have the best performance of the therapy and to feel good by himself too.

Before giving treatment techniques, the therapist must first take into consideration the needs of his body and the safest and most effective ways to use it.

Correct body mechanics is a must in order to safeguarding your own body integrity and also to perform effective therapy. It consists entirely in the combination of the use of common sense with regard to the body positioning and the use of weight in relation to gravity. Therapists usually are asked by their clients questions like: are you getting tired? or don’t you feel pain in your hands? If you learn the correct body mechanics, the answer will be no.

Body weight and gravity

Just as massage therapy should be holistic in the clients view, the therapist must care of his body mechanics in a holistic way. Correct body mechanics involves the whole body of the therapist but not only specific techniques made with thumbs, fingers, hands and even knees. The therapists approach to body mechanics, even though elements of it focus on a small area, must take his whole person into consideration, from his emotional attitude to the position of thumb joints.

Weight and gravity are the two foremost mechanical considerations in body mechanics. We take gravity so much for granted that we seldom give it a bit of importance, leaving our relationship to it in the hands of unconscious behavior patterns established early in life as we were learning to speak the first words. We must understand that some activities in life require a conscious awareness of gravity. Any sportsman, for example, must understand relationship between their body and gravity. So should massage therapists, because the therapists work is largely based on the chinese acupressure therapy techniques, which is best accomplished through the application of our body weight. Therefore, the most important principle of body mechanics is to use the body weight, rather than muscle force, to apply pressure.

The Benefits of correct body mechanics

Using the body weight requires less work. Using muscle strength to apply pressure on the acupressure points and meridians quickly tires the therapist, particularly the local muscles used for the purpose. In addition, the use of weight applies a smoother pressure on the patient’s body acupoints, lacking in tension, than the use of muscle force. When muscles sustain a contraction over in short periods of time, the process of recruitment and exhaustion at the tissue level results in an uneven pressure, which communicates a sense of tension to the client. To experience this difference, let your friend apply pressure to the same part of your body, using the same point of compression (palm, thumb, knuckles, etc.) using the same muscle force and then with body weight. Figure out the difference in sensation the pressure on the energy points are applied.

Anyways the therapist does use his muscles to stabilize your joints. One of the chief functions of muscles in the body is to stabilize joints, and when using your body weight to apply pressure on the tsubo points, this stabilization becomes a key element in the overall process of shiatsu massage an requires a lot of training.