Full Body Sports Massage Techniques, Shoulder and Glutes, Myofascial Release & Compression Massage

[Music] Hi, I'm Nicole. Today I'm going to be showing you how to do clothed sports massage. I will be working on the lovely Sophia. Let's begin. Whenever I'm doing sports massage, I like to begin with just a little bit of gentle rocking across the entire body to kind of just get a sense of where tension might lie. and to give the client a sense of their whole body being connected. When I get down to the leg, I like to span the knee with my hands. I feel like when I have both hands either above or below the knee, um I might twerk the knee a little bit and so I try to be cautious of that. And I would rock around the entire body, but for the sake of timing today, I am just going to do one side. All right, Sophia, if you'll take a couple deep breaths for me. If you start the massage having your client take some deep breaths, it helps them kind of sink into their body and it gives you a moment to center yourself. Wonderful. I'm just going to start with some nice compression down the spine. I'm really leaning in and using gravity as the massage therapist here. Not trying to muscle my way through. I'm pressing into the fascia, but I'm also pressing downwards towards the tailbone. So, I'm getting a little bit of traction there. Doing a little bit of myofascial release as well. I change my hand position when I get down to the lower back so that I'm not encroaching on the glutes. I try not to touch my clients in any areas of the body that I'm not focusing on. Just trying to be very traumainformed. Now, I'm just going to do some little kitty paw motion on the sacrum here. And I'm going to reach across the spine. And I'm kind of peeling that muscle tissue of the erectors away from the spine as I lean my pressure down and across the table [Music] and bring it all the way up into the neck because our erectors Do you come all the way up to the occiput and just doing some nice kneading here being aware of all the bony landmarks, not pushing into the spinus processes at all or the transverse processes. I'm coming here. I'm going to hook my fingers into the occiput and just lean back a little bit. Put some pressure there. Now Sophia has a sense of how long her spine really is. Come back down and do some compression alternating on the trapezius, upper trapezius. I'm kind of walking my hands out and walking my hands back in. [Music] Now I'm going to do a little bit of mobilizing and compression. So I'm going to bring her arm up and over. I'm going to place her arm on top of my arm so that I can move it. I want to be really careful to make sure that her arm stays on the table. I don't want to lift it upward as that can cause pinching and we can actually harm our clients. I'm going to find nice place on the upper trapezius and I'm going to push my thumb in as I bring her arm up towards her head. As I bring the arm back down, I will reposition my thumb further out on the trapezius. Again, bring the arm towards me. And again, making sure to avoid all bony landmarks. And depending on how broad your client's shoulders are will determine how many passes you'll want to do. And I'm going to do it on the other side. pressing in as I bring the arm up and releasing. Finding a new spot on the upper trapezius. And again, [Music] one more time. And bring that arm back up onto the table. do some more compressions to integrate that deeper work that I just did. Now, from here, I'm going to work on the arm. Just going to do a little bit of kneading down the triceps. Going to need the forearms as well. [Music] I might do some compression. We want to make sure that our client's elbow feels okay. So, I might ask my client, hey, let me know if this feels uncomfortable in your elbow at all. And I'm just going to compress down the arm. And I'm going to stop a few inches above the wrist because it's just tenderness right here and we don't want to do any harm. And I'm going to make some circles coming back up the forearm. Do a little more detailed work around the elbow where the attachments are. And I'm going to come down to the hand. I'm just going to make some little compressions with my thumbs, making sure to cover the whole hand. And compress, squeezing down each finger. Get every single carpel. and then spread across stretching the hand out. And from here, I'll just do some more light compressions up the arm. Now I want to give a little bit of extra attention here to the scapula infraspinatus and the ties and then also the deltoid as well. And then I'm going to do a little bit more mobilizing for the shoulder. So I'm going to slide my leg under here so that her arm is hanging off. And I'm gonna check in. Be like, Sophia, is this comfortable for you? Awesome. So, now I'm going to kind of sandwich the shoulder here. And I'm just gonna do a little bit of mobilizing. I'm just kind of making circles forward and backwards, mobilizing that shoulder joint. If you want, you can grab the trapezius and then the deltoid here and we can kind of squeeze and give a little bit of a compression as we're doing this mobilizing. Wonderful. And be sure to not lift the elbow up too high. Try to just slide your leg out. Remember, if we lift the arm up too high, it can cause discomfort. Wonderful. And then I'm going to do some more compressions. I am on one side of the spine, not going over the spinus process. Coming down into the lower back. I like to do crossbody work. So, I'm going to be working on the side opposite of me. And I'm kind of just hooking my fingers in, feeling for that QL and feeling for that body of the erectors. You can really see that nice hill from the erectors there. And I'm just kind of gently petrassaging this a little bit. Come down a little bit lower here and feel the lats. Make some circles right on top of the erectors. Making sure that you're not running into the spine at all. [Music] We can come on to the sacrum with these circles. It always feels really nice. And we can also do the circles on the same side as the body of the body that we're working on. If you stack your fingers, you can get a little bit deeper pressure. Since I'm just working from one side of the body today, I am going to support my thumbs together. Push in. And then I'm going to move my fingers down towards the table. And again, push in. right now approximately at the level of the QL. Slide my thumbs down again. Pushing in. This should be at the level of about the multifodi and rotatories. And I'm making sure to be below the last rib and above the hipbone here. So I have enough room to do one more pass. Push into the erectors. a bit lower into the QL. And if you find an area of tension, you might want to sit there and hold for a little while until you feel that release really melting into that muscle. A little bit lower. Now, I like to give a sense of the length here. So, I like to put the arm off the table and I'll check in. Sophia, is your arm comfortable there? Wonderful. So, here we have the lats. We know that they go from the bottom of the hip all the way up to the arms. So, I kind of like to do a little stretch here. I'm compressing up in the shoulder blade up towards that hummeral attachment. You can do some compressions starting at the lower back. I'm going to work at an angle up towards the attachment site. And with the arm off the table, I can do a little bit more detailed work here where the lats and the tries are. And I'm just going to make circles. These are pretty deep circles. I'm really trying to feel into the muscle tissue. And if I find any areas of a lot of tension, I might want to sink in and melt that. So I can put my thumb here and then use my other hand to sink in. So my thumb is a tool. So rather than using the muscles of my thumb, I'm using my thumb as a tool. We know we have to try to save our thumbs however we can as massage therapists. Wonderful. Bring the arm back up on the table. And just to integrate all of this, I will go down bilaterally on the spine. [Music] All right. Now, I'm down on the sacrum. So, I'm going to start moving on to the glutes. Going to make a fist, a loose fist, right? We don't want it to be tight. And I'm just kind of pushing in, doing a little bit of a turning motion as well. I'm not pushing too hard right now. I'm just trying to warm up the tissue. I'm avoiding the troanter and I'm trying to avoid the pelvis as well. Don't want to push it into any bony landmarks. It doesn't feel great. Don't forget that TFL and the glutius minimus over here on the hip area. And once you feel like the muscle tissue is a little bit warmer, then we can do some holding motion. I like to use my forearm. So, I'm using this two/irds of my forearm here. And I'm just pushing in, leaning, using gravity, not using my arms only to stabilize my body. And I'm just going to melt. Hold this until I feel the muscles release. Using my forearm, I'm using more of a broad tool. So, I always like to start with a more broad tool before we get any deeper. And right now I'm kind of on the apex of the glutes. So that the tallest part of the glutes. I'm trying to center myself there. And from there I'm going to move a little bit more laterally and a little bit more superiorly. And I'm going to do the same thing. And the sacrum is here. Troanter is here. So I'm staying in between my bony landmarks. And then next I'll change my arm position so that I can lean in here, catch that TFL, glutius minimus, a little bit of the medius. Before I go any deeper, I'm going to want to mobilize this area. I'm just going to use my loose fist again and I'm going to push in as I stir the pot with the leg. Now, this is going to be a good way for me to be able to tell if that purformis is really tight. So, if you notice your clients with a turnout in their legs, that's probably the purformis. Remember, it starts at the sacrum, comes down to the troanter. And if we do notice the purformis is really tight, I'm going to put the leg to the opposite side. Push in to where the purformis is pinning it. And then I'm going to move the leg towards me, which is going to give it a little bit of a stretch. So we're doing like a pin and stretch here. Back to mobilizing. We can do that a couple of times. We can also make it more specific. We could lean in with our elbow if we felt like they needed more pressure. [Music] And now I'm going to do some deep circles along the sacrum. Just kind of feeling for any areas of a lot of tension. And when I find an area with a lot of tension, I'm going to come in and I'm going to use a little bit more of a pointier tool. So, not fully using my elbow, but I'm definitely including a lot more elbow in this time as I lean here. And I'm just going to melt. And once I feel that muscle relax and let go, I'll disengage and I'll go back to my circles. Now, I'm going to move out across the top of the illium here again, feeling for areas of tension. And then, I'm going to lean in with a little bit more of my elbow. Just holding, listening to the body. I'll disengage. Continue with my circles. So, I'm just kind of following those bony landmarks. I'm going to work my way down to the troanter. Feel around the troanter. See if there's any areas of tension. Probably going to be at your puriforis attachment. Usually, we find tension there. So, I'll go ahead and lean in. [Music] And from here, we're going to move down to the hamstrings. So, we'll start again with this stirring motion and my compression. And then I'm going to work my way onto the hamstrings. Compressing, leaning with my body. Notice my wrist, my elbow, my shoulder are in alignment so that I can really lean in and not have to muscle my way through this and the other hamstrings all the way up to that isial tuberosity. [Music] And we're going to do some more compressions. So, I like to have my hands at this kind of angle so that my clients feel comfortable. I don't ever want my fingers angling towards any areas that might make them uncomfortable. Just compressing. [Music] And I want to stop a couple of inches above the crease and the knee because we know that that is a danger zone. and more compressions. I'm going to aim for about the middle of the hamstrings here. And if I do notice a lot of tension, I might come back in with some deeper circles. And this way I can really feel those hamstrings where they are and where the tension lies. And then I might want to come in and do some melting if I did find an area with a lot of tension. Working my way up. I'm using my forearm here. And again, if we ever feel like we need to go deeper, we can bring our hand up towards our shoulder, which is going to make it have a little bit more elbow, a little more point to it. And I want to integrate the upper leg with the lower leg. So I'm going to do some more of that rocking motion. We do want to give the back of the knee a little bit of love. So I just gently spread my thumbs doing a little bit of myofascial release in this area. We can also make some circles around the sides of the knee, the back of the knee. Now we have some attachment sites there for the calf muscles, right? and moving on to the calf. So again, I'm just going to start with some nice compressions [Music] and I can lift the leg up. I'm going to slide my leg under. kind of want to aim for about a third of the way up from the ankle. And I'm going to grab the foot and I'm going to move the foot as I compress the calf. So, a little bit of mobilizing on the ankle as we do some compressions. When when we plant our flex, it's relaxing that muscle. And when we dorsif flex, it's going to be stretching that muscle. So, it's going to be a little bit of a pin and stretch action doing this. And again, if we ever feel like we need more pressure, we can lean in. Try to keep your back straight. We can lean in with our forearm here. Or you can use your elbow, right? If we need even more pressure, but be careful because the calves tend to be a very sensitive area. So, we don't want to go too deep and especially not too quickly. We want to make sure we give that Achilles tendon some love. Just doing some nice little compressive circles here. And then we want to make sure we address the foot a little bit. So I like to do a little more mobilization the knee and the ankle. And I'm pressing in as I bring that leg up towards the glutes. And then I'm moving to a new place. each time. [Music] And then I would go around and I would do the other leg, making sure to get the lower back as well and the arm. But for today, I hope that that was enough and we'll talk to you later. [Music]