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Reddit mentions of Save Your Hands!: The Complete Guide to Injury Prevention and Ergonomics for Manual Therapists
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Reddit mentions: 3
We found 3 Reddit mentions of Save Your Hands!: The Complete Guide to Injury Prevention and Ergonomics for Manual Therapists. Here are the top ones.
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Height | 10 Inches |
Length | 8 Inches |
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Weight | 1.93 Pounds |
Width | 0.75 Inches |
When I was fresh out of school, still working a full time job and doing massage on the side, I ended up here. I went to a local therapist who had been practicing massage alongside her husband for over 20 years. While she did amazing neuromuscular work on me I asked how they had been able to practice for so long. Did they trade with each other often or what? Her answer surprised me, and honestly changed my life. She said they actually hardly ever worked on each other and both depended on daily yoga practice to keep them in good condition. She said 2 hr a day would be her ideal but anything on a daily basis helps.
I took her words to heart, found Yoga With Adriene on YouTube and never looked back. Personally I find a mix of strength training using the Stronglift 5x5 program and yoga to be very effective. I work at one of the best paying, busy places in my area, yet I cannot afford to get massage and bodywork except when I absolutely need it, maybe 4x per year. So I really do depend on staying healthy on my own. However it take a lot of time and dedication and sometimes life gets in the way. So here's what I've found for crisis times when I'm not able to do my regular self care:
Edit) apologies for formatting as I'm on mobile. If anyone can tell me how to add breaks between bullet points I'd be grateful.
I use a hot-cold contrast bath at the end of a day where I'm feeling like my hands have been stressed, and that's been effective for me to avoid injury. It sounds like you've already incurred some injury to your fingers/hands from the work you've been doing. Long term rest might be what you really need for the injuries to heal.
Deep tissue work is hard work. And it's way too easy to find yourself in the territory of overuse and repetitive stress injury. Practicing multiple deep tissue sessions with no break between is a recipe for injury. And it sounds like you've got some injury, especially with the sharp pain in the knuckles.
"Save Your Hands!" by Laurianne Green is a pretty good book about dealing with injury and injury prevention for massage therapists. I've been reading the original 1995 edition, but it's since been updated.
Treat this pain seriously. It's a signal that you've used your body too much and you need to rest and heal. In the long term, you might need to change the way you practice so that you can continue deep tissue work in a sustainable way (e.g. take some damn breaks).
The protocol I use for hot-cold contrast bath:
The hot-cold contrast bath has worked for me pretty effectively. That said, I've done it as soon as I feel any stress in my hands, and so far haven't experienced any long term pain issues. Your mileage may vary. Void where prohibited. Ask your doctor if hot-cold contrasts baths are right for you.
In that case I implore you to take body mechanics very seriously and take responsibility for figuring it out on your own. In my 14 years of doing this I've watched a lot of people crash and burn. With poor body mechanics, a good chunk of therapists only last 2-5 years.
Save Your Hands is a great book. It's a little pricey, but well worth the info. If you buy it used just be aware that the 2nd edition is 333 pages vs 159 pages for the first edition (I only have the 1st ed so I can't really comment on the updated content)
If you're a member of ABMP there are a few free courses dealing with body mechanics (not sure about AMTA)
Having a full length mirror where you can see yourself while working can be helpful as well as asking a experienced therapist to observe you while working on someone.
Don't overuse your thumbs! It's easy to do and will become an issue faster than a lot of other body parts. Use your leverage and body weight to your advantage (try leaning your fingers into your table while raising your front leg off the ground and see just how much pressure you can get with little effort)
Make sure your table is the proper height! For me a good rule of thumb is when making a fist with my arms straight down, my knuckles are at table level.
It's ok to jump out of good body mechanics from time to time, but you need to be aware of what you're doing.
If something is painful while doing it, Stop! Find a different way of doing it or accept that that particular move is not good for you.
Be well rested and well nourished before your sessions and have quick, healthy snacks on hand. If you're tired or hung over, your body mechanics are the first thing to go out the window. It's normal to feel a bit tired after doing a bunch of sessions, but if you're feeling completely wiped/energetically drained you probably need to work on your grounding and centering. It's normal to be a little tired/sore at first as your massage muscles start to develop. Hope this helps!