Hand Massage
A short tutorial courtesy of MassageNerd.com which shows you how to carry out a simple hand massage. You'll soon become a massage expert with these videos!
Step 1: Chalking:
With the hand region, right in between the tendons is called "chalking." It's a form of friction. You go back and forth kind of fast if you want, or you can actually just slow glide in between the tendons here. Also at the wrist area --- this is the extensor side --- you can go right around the carpal bones, you can even separate right there too, or you can do circular friction back and forth in that area. You can also flip it over and perform more of a broadening technique right here too. Especially people with carpal tunnel problems, hand, wrist problems, forearm problems, concentrate in this area. So again, the median nerve. Make sure you're not putting any pressure right on the median nerve. It's directly centre for that area there.
Step 2: Separate the palm area:
Next one, for the palm area: You can separate the palm area, works really nice. And again: carpenters, mechanics, people that are clenching up all the time with tools, this is the area that they usually need the most. With this you can also use your knuckles right into there, you can go back and forth, even twist, or like you're playing the piano.
Step 3: Circumduction:
With the fingers: You can slide the fingers, you can do friction back and forth. Whenever you're performing massage techniques, try to perform it at least three times for each massage technique, just to make sure, because it takes a little while for them to actually feel it. So you can find out if they actually like the technique or not. Just watch your body mechanics, watch how their body reacts. Some people actually kind of circle --- this is called "circumduction," when it's a circular motion like this. So again, for each finger, those areas.
Step 4: Palm stretches:
Some of my favourite stretches for the palm: I'm actually going to lock it in here. We'll put the pinkie right in here, right where with the thumb is, like this. Wrap three fingers around over here and then spread the palm area. Most people just love this technique. You can also use your knuckles, you can see here. Use both, back and forth. This next one is a little bit more difficult. Rotate the hand like this: Right in between the index and the middle finger, I'm going to put my pinkie. Then I'm going to put two fingers between the thumb and the index, like this. Then I'll show you the other side real quick: I'm going to put the pinkie in here, right in between the middle and the ring finger, and that other finger in between the ring and the pinkie, like this. So again, like this: so it's more of a stretch. I'm going to separate the palm area then. Again, it's just more of a stretch for that region. Then you can also perform a little bit of flexion for a stretch. Remember, with stretching you want to slow in, maintain it, then slow out. Again, no jarring techniques. You can also perform extension for this area. This is called radial deviation, more the radial bone, you can stretch it out that way; or ulnar deviation, because this is the ulnar bone over here, and stretch it out that way then too. Some people like one hand going up, one hand going down, kind of a traction, more in the wrist area, back and forth. You can also have hand on top and bottom, kind of separate and pull. You can also circular friction with your palm, these regions. You just move back and forth, more of a circular friction like this too. Also, just stretch out a finger at a time. You can even just lay their hand on here, one hand underneath, and you can use more pressure that way for the knuckles when you're using that. You can use more of your palm in that area too. You can also squeeze the whole hand, "praying for pain." You can perform it the other way too, as more of a stretch. You can also put your thumb in the palm area and squeeze around that then too. A great technique for the palm area is to extend the fingers and go right down the palm. Extend, go out, works really nice. Next one, you can stretch out the thumb. You can just wrap your thumb in here, get more of a stretch that way too. So again, always make sure you know what they do for a living, so you know what areas to concentrate on a little bit more too, actually helps them out.
Step 5: Asian medicine:
Right here, in Asian medicine, they believe this is more of a headache point. It's called "Large Intestine 4." You can press this area, you can use circular friction or just hold it down. But for pregnant women, you want to stay away from that point. Again, if the client is pregnant, stay away from there. There are a lot of precautions for a pregnant individual. Mainly, make sure you get training for that, when you're working on pregnant women, just to be safe.
Step 6: Check relaxation:
Then you can also rock it around a little bit, shake it, the hand, and then back and forth too. Also, just do a little bit of motions back and forth, and circular motion. This is to see how relaxed they are, because if they're not, it will just be tensed up more in that area. So you can also just use one knuckle on the palm area.
Step 7: Hand lotions:
Some people's hands are really dry. I prefer you use lotion for the hands, but some people actually use oil. The thing is, when they're done with the massage treatment their hands are all oily. So it's a lot better to use lotion for the hands and the feet. Especially when they get up off the table, for their feet, you're going to get oil stains on the carpet. And they're also going to slosh around on their shoes, especially if they're wearing sandals on a nice hot summer day, they're going to slip out of their shoes easier that way. So again, lotion. It will absorb real nice. Some people use cream but it's not the same as lotion for the hands and the feet.
Step 8: Palm massage:
So you can also go up and down with the palm area. You can also incorporate more of the forearm into the hand then. Remember, for circulation-wise, you want with the longer techniques make sure you're going towards the heart. The shorter techniques it's okay to go any direction you want, pressure-wise.
Step 9: Thanks for watching:
Okay, that's for the hand area. So again, you can incorporate other techniques too. When we get to the back, there's many techniques that can be used throughout whole body that you can incorporate on those areas. So what I'm going to do is, I'm going to show you some stretching with the arms, basic stretching...
