(peaceful music)
- Hello, massageners.
I'm gonna bring you a little bit of a different video today.
This client came in, and she's got several things going on,
everything from headaches to TMJ
and stuff going on in the SCM,
so I'm gonna show you some of my favorite techniques
to do so that you can work with somebody,
and remember that you do the dry work first.
So one of my favorite things to do is
to start off with is to hold the occipital ridge.
All I'm doing is cupping my fingers underneath
and just going all along the occipital ridge,
'cause actually, this tells me how much tension she has.
As you can see, I lift up her head,
and then just let her head drop right into my fingertips,
and I hold it, and I can tell she's got stuff going on
in the left side already because it starts twitching,
and it's, you know, as I feel all the way out,
you know, I'm moving laterally,
so what I do is I start in the middle
and just move out laterally,
and I can tell she's really got some major stuff going on
in the left side, and I may hold it there for a few seconds
just so that I can feel, you know, the pulse also.
And this is one of my favorite things
to do at the very beginning, and like I said,
remember you do all your dry work first.
And it helps you connect with your client,
and I also like to do the scalp,
and I've incorporated some other things
that I wanna show you, so you can go in
and just really massage the scalp in circular motions,
but one of the things I wanna show you today
is how to go in the scalp if they have hair obviously,
and you pull.
I'm close so I go in, I close my fist,
and then you turn it.
So you go in, close your fist, and then turn it,
and this really feels good.
Don't yank their hair, but you know,
you go in. (chuckles)
How does it feel? Does it feel all right?
Feels good? And then you twist a little bit.
Not too hard, but this really helps
to start loosening up the scalp,
and this is before, you know,
you don't get any oil or anything in the hair,
so you go up, you close your fist,
and then you twist.
So you go in, close your fist,
and then twist.
This is a really nice technique
to start loosening up the scalp
and loosening up the...
occipitofrontalis.
Remember occipitofrontalis goes
from the occipital all the way to your forehead.
So this is a good way to start,
you know, loosening up all these muscles...
On the scalp. Your suboccipitals too in the back
if you can get to the back ones too,
and do that to the back.
So you go in, close your fist, and twist.
And you can do both hands at the same time.
So I'm gonna go in, from the ears up,
grab, close my fists, and twist.
This is also a good way to relax the scalp.
Then what I'm gonna do is separate the eyebrows.
She's got some stuff going on with the left TMJ,
so I'm gonna go ahead
and just start warming up the face a little bit,
introducing my touch, you know,
just relaxing her facial muscles.
Do a little bit of tapotement.
Do some around the eyebrows here,
kinda squeezing both at a time.
The occipital frontalis attaches right here,
it's the one you raise your eyebrows with.
Or you can do one side at a time.
You can separate at the forehead.
So you wanna make sure and work the masseter muscle,
and be careful with the parotid gland.
The parotid gland is really close to the ear,
so you wanna make sure that you don't put pressure
on this side, but you can also work the masseter,
and you can ask 'em to clench--
Clench your jaw for-- oh! I'm right on it.
So okay, relax now.
So if they clench their jaw,
you can see if you're on their masseter.
Remember the masseter per square unit is stronger
than any other muscle in your body.
So you wanna make sure and work this out
in circular motions.
You wanna get to the lateral and medial pterygoids too,
so you-- can you open your mouth just slightly,
and you go where your hand kinda dips down,
your fingers dip down.
There's a little hole right there,
so you can get to the lateral pterygoids,
and the lateral pterygoids are like a mirror image
of the masseter, so.
You can really just work in circular motions.
People that have TMJ,
they have a lot of tension in their jaw,
so you wanna make sure you can do a little bit
of skin rolling here too,
and of course the trigger points.
I also do the intraoral massage,
but I'm not gonna show you that today.
Somebody that has TMJ,
you wanna do the intraoral massage too,
to go in there and relax the muscles from the inside.
But for the sake of time today,
we're only gonna be doing just some specific work
on the face.
And the figure eights. I love the figure eights.
You always move out, around the eye.
This is very relaxing.
You wanna tie it all in together
with a little bit of effleuraging.
And like I said, you can spend longer
on the face if you need to, okay?
Depending on how much time you have.
I do a lot of specific work, so I can spend--
Somebody that has headaches,
I can spend an hour just on their head.
Obviously doing it a lot more specific in intent,
and slower and just spending more time.
Remember that when you work the ears,
you're working all the reflexes of the body,
especially when you go in this middle area right here.
If you massage that, that really stimulates.
(laughs) Isn't that funny?
That stimulates the vagus nerve,
and the vagus nerve is for relaxation,
you know, is part of the...
it puts you in parasympathetic mode,
which helps you relax.
You can do a few circles there,
and then you can pull the ears down a little bit,
forward and up, you know, so, and behind the ears.
Now that I've done the dry work,
I'm ready to start using some oil,
and I wanna show you some work on the neck and the SEM,
because this is important for people that--
especially people that have been in accidents,
like whiplash, the SEM work is very important.
And another one of my favorite techniques
is gliding down the lamina groove.
So after you've done this one a few times,
I'm gonna cup her at the occipital.
I'm gonna raise her head, and with this hand,
I'm gonna glide down the lamina groove,
and her head's gonna come down at the same time.
I raise it,
and then I let the weight of her head glide my thumb down
on the side of the spinous processes.
This one feels really good on people.
Most people really like this technique.
And we switch to the other side,
and all I'm doing is like cupping her head,
and I'm going down, raising her head,
and letting the weight of her head bring my thumb down,
or my fingers, if your thumb's hurting,
you don't wanna use your thumbs, use your fingers.
But this one is a very good one
to glide down the lamina groove.
That's another one of my favorite techniques.
Now I wanna show you how to work the SEM,
because this is very important.
I've seen other people that don't do it correctly.
When you're gonna work the SEM, and the sternocleidomastoid,
the origins are in the sternum and the clavicle,
and insert at the mastoid process,
and you wanna turn the head ipsilateral.
Ipsilateral means to the same side.
The reason you wanna do this is
because you wanna hide the carotid artery
and the jugular vein,
so if you ever see anybody pushing straight into the neck,
that's wrong because--
actually just even putting my hand here,
I can feel her pulse.
So you never wanna work on the neck like this.
And remember, one of the ways that the neck turns is
flexion, extension...
lateral flexion, and then rotation.
So you wanna move the neck in those positions.
So on this one it's ear to shoulder.
That's lateral flexion.
So you wanna put her head in lateral flexion.
The ear to the shoulder, that hides the carotid artery
and that way you don't feel a pulse,
and now I can go to the origins
at the sternum and the clavicle,
and I can grasp like a pincer the SEM,
and if you can't feel it,
you can ask your head to raise their head up a little bit,
and you know, it'll show,
but for the most part I know exactly where it's at,
and you go one inch at a time
like you're doing the money sign,
one inch at a time.
But you must have the head turned ipsilateral,
which means to the same side.
And you wanna follow the way, you know,
the necks moves, like, you know,
the lateral flexion.
It's ear to shoulder.
So you wanna work that really good,
and in the mastoid process where it starts.
Remember the origins are always closer
to the midline, so these are the origins,
and this is the insertion,
and so what the SEM does is it flexes,
like when you're praying, it flexes your neck down,
so it's very important for you to massage
from the origin, one inch strips,
and people that have TMJ, this is like tender sometimes.
You will find trigger points in here.
So if you find a trigger point,
you can hang out there from 10 to 15,
you know, seconds at the most, you know,
and just hold it there.
It feels tight right there, that's why I'm just kind of
massaging it gently, and can do a bit of effleurage there,
but this is how you treat the SEM.
It's one of the ways to treat it.
You can also treat it side lying.
I'm just showing you the supine position today.
I'm gonna treat the other side,
'cause I don't want any of her lopsided,
so remember, you're gonna treat,
you know, you're gonna do the lateral flexion.
So I'm turning my head, so that's how her head's gonna go,
'cause I see a lot of people do rotation,
turning the head in rotation.
You do not turn the head in rotation for this move.
You do ear to shoulder.
You're doing lateral flexion,
not rotation when you're doing this movement,
or working the SEM.
So I go to the origins...
And then treat the SEM...
and then the mastoid process...
And then you wanna tie it all in together,
and now I also wanna show you another move
like to do some myofascial release too.
This is also another good one
to kinda start, you know, increasing a little.
So you go right here to where the acromion process is
and where the trapezius ends.
What I do is I have my fist,
and I am gonna ask her to turn her head this way
as I push down.
Perfect.
And as I can see, as, you know,
I'm creating some myofascial release here,
so put her head to the middle,
and then as I push, I'm pushing down,
she turns her head,
so she's doing some active range of motion,
but this really also gives, you know, expands the fascia.
One more time?
Now this is rotation.
So now, I'm gonna do--
I'm gonna ask you to do ear to shoulder.
I'm coming with this fist, and go ear to shoulder,
and I'm pulling laterally.
'Kay, to the middle again, and then...
There you go, and I'm moving laterally.
This really creates some myofascial release here,
and I felt some knots there, right? (chuckles)
Okay, I'm gonna hang out right there.
I'm gonna use my knuckle,
and just hold it where I feel a big knot right there.
She's got some, you know, some ischemia going on there.
I can feel the tightness.
Like I said, I can hang out there anywhere,
you know, from 10 to 15 seconds.
Hold it, ask her to breathe,
and so this'll help bring more blood flow to the area,
more oxygen.
Ooh, and it moved, so.
Okay, I felt that. Okay, so, you can do--
Also you can go underneath by the scapula,
by the mid scapula, and just kinda rake up,
bringing both hands up at the same time,
and treat the trapezius.
This is a good way to treat the trapezius
with both hands.
My left hand is underneath, my right hand is on top,
and this way I don't wear out my thumbs,
but I'm going the length of the upper trapezius right here.
And if you wanted to treat the scalenes,
then you must go underneath the SEM,
and go into treating the scalenes right here.
Scalenes, remember, help with breathing.
A lot of times when people have problems with breathing,
you know, they slept wrong, you know,
their scalenes are really tight,
so you wanna make sure to go underneath the scalenes,
I mean, underneath the SEM,
and treat the origins of the scalenes,
but you've gotta be real careful here on this triangle.
If you feel a pulse, you stay off of it.
Actually, I like to treat the scalenes side lying, so.
And right here, you wanna go all along the occipital ridge,
one inch at a time.
All I'm doing is circular motion,
you know, just circular motions,
one inch at a time, along the occipital ridge.
So right here, you're treating the suboccipital muscles.
If you can treat the suboccipital muscles,
it really help with relieving some
of that pressure from the headaches.
They're actually called ghost headache muscles.
So her headaches could be coming from the suboccipitals.
If you press here, and you can ask 'em,
does it refer anywhere else?
Does that refer anywhere else? No.
Then it's just right there, so you can just treach,
teach, reach (laughs), reach, teach (laughs)...
The suboccipitals.
And then what I like to do is a little stretch here,
on the opposite side.
I just kind of pull a little bit here,
a little bit of traction.
Feels really good to people that,
you know, are having problems with their neck
and headaches.
Then I just wanna reach closure with her shoulders.
While you're here, you can also work the platysma,
and the pecs.
And I always go back.
Once I'm done with the face and head and shoulders,
I always go back to that occipital hold.
I can tell her neck is a lot looser,
just from the little bit that I did,
so it's always good,
and that's why I do it at the beginning,
just to see how much tension there is,
and just for it to tell me-- her body to tell me exactly
where she's holding more tension,
whether it's the right or the left hand side.
But I could tell right away
that it was looser on both sides,
and not spasming as much.
So you wanna reach closure with your client here,
and then you just hold it,
come back to hold the occipital ridge,
and that should help your client relax,
and that's a good 15 to 20 minutes
that you can do on the face and neck and head,
and until the next time, create a great day.
(calm piano music)