Learn About Hot Stones Therapy Techniques

It is important as a massage therapist to maintain to clean our Rock Sara prior to, during and after each use. So what we are going to do? First, is we are going to warm up the tissue before frying hot stone. We are starting at the trapezius and I am going all the way down to the sacrum opening up, coming back on the flanks, around the shoulders like this up on the trapezius pulling up on the occiput, perform this a couple of times and this is going to promote a state of relaxation in our client.

There are two types of applications for hot stone therapy, one of this is placement stones. We start with a large stone which we place on the sacrum, this triangular section and it provides heat to the entire lumbar area. Following that, we are going to place stones along each side of the spine along the longissimus muscle. Our stones are left there from anywhere from 15 to 25 minutes depending on the needs of the client.

So what are the red flags or contraindications for hot stone massage? Anyone who is pregnant below three months probably should not get one. People with varicose veins, high blood pressure, ulcers or any kind of skin disease should not be having a hot stone massage. We normally ask our client if they have any medical history that maybe an additional contraindication. Whether they are taking any medications that may react to heat in this particular case.

I take a stone from the heater, I place some oil on it and they start using it for broad techniques in the back. And as I am working the back, I am leaving the stones in a way it is a way of massaging the back and then leaving the placement stones all the way up when I have covered the entire back in my client there, he relaxes and we are ready and move to a different segment of the body.

So what I have in my hand now is considered a tooling stone. What a tooling stone is, is if you look at my thumb and notice there is a similarity between it and the stone. Most massage therapist have to apply a lot of pressure with there thumbs working if they are going to be needing into attention and adhesion, but with a tooling stone I have a benefit of an extended thumb and I can apply a lot of pressure into one particular knot. So this is what we call a flush. Place the stone in the hand, so it is like that.

If you are one of those people that have cold hands, this is one of the ways to prevent the hands from getting cold during the massage because during a massage your body temperature will drop and this is one of the benefits again to hot stone massage.

This is Andy Aragon for watchmojo.com at mymassotherapist. I would like to thank you for taking the time to watch our segment on hot stone massage.




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