Do you do massage with your feet?
Not yet -- though I'm considering learning how to do that for my continuing education someday. For the moment, "barefoot" is my lifestyle, not my massage tool.
Do I have to get undressed?
Not if you'd really rather not -- but massage does feel better on skin than it does over clothing. Rest assured, either way, nothing gets seen that shouldn't: Oregon law and professional ethical standards require draping and privacy practices that will protect your modesty. It's your massage and you should be comfortable, whatever that takes.
What is a knot?
Essentially, it's connective tissue (fascia) that's bulked up to take the stress of muscle tissue that has been chronically overstretched and/or overworked. You know how a sack of rice at the grocery store is fairly soft and floppy? That's like healthy, balanced tissues. If the fabric of the sack were to get thicker and thicker, you'd end up with less and less room for the rice inside, and the bag would become hard and inflexible. That's like a knot. Trouble is, inside your body, the "rice" is living cells that need oxygen and nutrients, which the thick "fabric" can squeeze out. That means pain and dysfunction!
What is a trigger point?
It's a cramp -- only instead of a cramp in a whole muscle, it's a cramp in a single muscle fiber. (They can be almost as painful as the larger kind sometimes, though!)
What is fascia?
Fascia is the connective tissue that surrounds, supports, and binds together all of your tissues -- cell to cell, organ to blood vessel, muscle to skin, and so on. If all of your living cells could be stripped away, what would be left would be a translucent, you-shaped webwork of fascia. (In fact, scientists CAN wash away the cells of a donor organ and use the remaining fascial scaffold to graft recipient cells to, creating rejection-free transplants -- although it's not yet common practice. How cool is that!?) This superstructure has been overlooked by researchers for a very long time, so we don't yet fully understand it, but we know it's there, we know it's important, and we know more all the time about how it responds to life and to bodywork such as massage.
How often should people get massage?
If I had a marketing advisor, they'd probably like me to tell you, "As often as possible!" The real answer, though, is a lot less satisfying: It depends. The benefits of massage tend to be cumulative, meaning regular sessions do you more good than sporadic ones, but everyone's body is different -- and every massage therapist's work is different. How do you find out what your schedule should be?
Figure the amount of pain it takes for you to call up your LMT for an appointment. AFTER that appointment, if they're any good, you should have less of that pain. The morning after, you may ache or feel discomfort again, but it should be DIFFERENT discomfort, and go away in a day or two tops, leaving you once more feeling better. Then, life creeps back in, and so does the pain. Ideally, you want to get back in for another session BEFORE you return to the same level of pain you were in when you called them the first time -- 90% or less. If you let it get back to 100%, you're not gaining ground. For some types of targeted treatment, this calls for once-a-week sessions. For general maintenance, it may be four to six weeks. You're the only one who can tell, because you're the only one who lives in your body every day. (Unlike me OR my hypothetical marketing advisor.)
Figure the amount of pain it takes for you to call up your LMT for an appointment. AFTER that appointment, if they're any good, you should have less of that pain. The morning after, you may ache or feel discomfort again, but it should be DIFFERENT discomfort, and go away in a day or two tops, leaving you once more feeling better. Then, life creeps back in, and so does the pain. Ideally, you want to get back in for another session BEFORE you return to the same level of pain you were in when you called them the first time -- 90% or less. If you let it get back to 100%, you're not gaining ground. For some types of targeted treatment, this calls for once-a-week sessions. For general maintenance, it may be four to six weeks. You're the only one who can tell, because you're the only one who lives in your body every day. (Unlike me OR my hypothetical marketing advisor.)