Full Body Massage Video For Back Relaxation

Hello. This is Athena Jezik, and today we’re going to work on a relaxation massage. I’m giving some ideas to maybe help out people in your family or your friends, to just giving them a little bit of relief when they’re under stress. So we’ll just start out with checking the body and then we’ll apply the oil.

It’s a good idea to put the oil in your hands first rather than just drop it on them, because sometimes it’s cold and it’s kind of a shock to them if it comes out cold. One more should do it.

Ok, starting up at the neck near the spine be sure you do not go on the spine not on the bones but on either side of it. This is usually done three times and each time you move a little farther out from the spine. So you get the edges of the erector spinae and this is just a sweep of the same thing, I’m just doing it one at a time. You want to get into the trapezius muscle and just move along that structure little by little and take it up to the shoulder blade and let it just sweep over and the go the opposite direction from the shoulder up to the neck, and as you move down it will be from the shoulder down to the spine with that upward motion.

And then along the scapula there is quite a bit of musculature along there so it’s nice to just check it, if it’s smooth, if it’s doing alright, if you find something there you can stop and work on it. This doesn’t have to be done with a whole lot of pressure but you want enough pressure to be sure you are working the muscle and not just tickling the muscle.

[Athena speaks to Corrina]

And under the shoulder blade a bit. This is where a lot of tension is held.

Here I need to move to the lower back. We’re moving upward along the hip line where the attachment are. In the places where the hips attach, the low back attaches, there’s a lot of activity here. It’s a stability point of the body. Hips are like the bowl that we stabilize ourselves with.

Then I work up the spine coming from this direction as well because when you come upward you are separating the vertebrae a little bit differently than when you work down the spine. It’s good to give the range of motion to the vertebrae, with both dimensions.

Ok then taking it in a, I like to bring my fingers in and actually feel like I’m pulling a little bit outward, tucking my fingers somewhat underneath that muscle where it’s attaching, at the erector spinae where it’s attaching into the spine. Kind of pick it up and do a little palpation underneath that muscle. It feels very good, very relaxing and sometimes it feels like you’re scratching a deep itch. I think that’s why bears must rub against trees. And then one more and taking it up all the way to the skull. Going on to the other side we start with the same thing. We’ll start by pulling outward. And then by pushing inward. This is going with the muscle fiber with both directions and we’re just giving it a little bit of work going in both directions. Loosening up any facial restrictions that might be there and the shoulder blade.

You want to remember to do the same thing on both sides.

I’ve had some massage therapists that don’t really have a good routine down and it becomes that they just don’t really know what they’re doing, there’s not any focus, and, uh, so the work isn’t as focused in on really loosening muscles when you go so erratic over the body. It’s better to have a routine which you’re moving from one muscle group to another.

But if you’re just doing your friends or your family that’s just a different, a little bit different work, and it’s alright to not necessarily have a routine with them because any kind of touch and any kind of therapeutic intention behind that is going to relax them out anyway.

We seem to be lacking a lot in human touch in this society. Healthy human touch.

And we’ll climb up the vertebrae here. And then do some pulling away from the vertebrae with your fingers underneath there.

Next, what I do is I work on the vertebrae more. I start up at the base of the skull and I do a vertebral column vibration on either side of the vertebrae and just vibrating it back and forth all the way down to the sacrum. And then here, I tuck my thumbs underneath, right along, I just slip it in right along each vertebrae along the muscle and just kind of push out. You can go quite deeply. This isn’t done with a lot of pressure. I would say, if anything, it’s more steady, that you keep a hold of the muscle and down, keeping a hold of the muscle so you just keep the tension there while you’re getting underneath it. And usually I go to the other side of the table to get this, but it can be done on the same side and just holding on and stretching the muscle a little bit as you work it, and get deep into it. And then a second vibration down the spine. And then I run up the spine rather deeply and at this point what I do is I also pull away from the vertebrae so there’s a little bit of a downward pressure but it’s not a deep pressure. Then I pull away from the vertebrae so you’re giving little stretches to the small attachments there. And then this also will open up the vertebrae as you come up the spine.

Each little vertebrae has it’s own range of motion there.

Then you go around the spine. Each little bone. You don’t want to rub on the bone but you want to go around it. This is to get circulation in there and to relax the muscles, remembering that the nerve, the main nerve of the body runs down inside of this column so your entire system is the highway. And back up we go.

And then a nice way to finish is just to spread the tissues out kind of like they’re being ironed. Get inside the ribcage there. And then we’re going to pull up, wrapping and wrapping the body. This always feels good.

So basically, if you’re doing this for your friends or your family, just be gentle with it and have good intention behind it and be aware that you don’t want to be on a bone.

There’s a lot of pressure and you don’t want to take anything too deeply because that’s not comfortable. Just the gentler, focused, intentional work for relaxing will produce a good result.

Thank you. I’m Athena Jezik and this was a demonstration of a back relaxation massage.