- Hello massage nurse.
Today, I wanna bring you some basic techniques
of effleurage and petrissage.
There are different variations of petrissage and effleurage,
and they're really the very basic of Swedish massage.
So, I wanted to give you guys
a little bit of information on it,
like effleurage comes from a French word that means
to glide and flow.
So, it's very, you know, creates a rhythm.
It creates a rhythm for when you're giving a massage.
It is gliding and repeating the movements
that follow the the body's contours.
So, you wanna start out slow
and superficial at the beginning.
It really does warm up the tissue
and it introduces, you know,
that's when you introduce the oil or lotions or potions
that you're gonna be using.
For instance, you wanna do your dry work first,
like your skin rolling, your myofascial release,
your stretches.
So then, you're ready to start
applying the oils, or the lotion, whatever you use.
So you wanna go ahead and start with effleurage.
Also, effleurage is used for transitions.
You wanna use transitional effleurage when you're going
let's say you do effleurage,
let's say you do five strokes of effleurage
and then petrissage,
and then you're gonna go to tapotement.
So, in between changing to petrissage and tapotement,
and friction,
you wanna do two or three strokes of effleurage
'cause it really helps with the flow.
So,
petrissage now means to knead or to
let me see,
to knead or mash.
That's a little bit deeper.
And what it does is it really starts stimulating
the blood flow.
And you can do it, like I said,
you can do it with one hand,
with a soft fist, with a forearm.
All of these you can do more or less
with all the parts of your arms and forearm.
So, I'm gonna start
and I'm gonna show you the different variations.
And, you wanna make sure that for petrissage,
you stand in a horse stance.
You wanna stand with your shoulders and your hips aligned
towards the table when you're doing petrissage.
And when you're doing effleurage,
you wanna stand with an arch,
or stand with one foot in front.
This is so that you don't hurt your back.
Remember that the strength comes from your legs.
You're pushing with your legs.
You're not just doing this with your arms.
So, let's start.
Let's suppose that I've already done maybe some stretch-in,
some myofascial release,
I've done myofascial release, I've done some stretching,
and I've some skin rolling.
So now I'm gonna start with effleurage.
I'm ready to apply my oils, my lotion, whatever.
You wanna warm it up.
And so, you can start with two-handed effleurage, okay?
This is a two-handed effleurage.
You can go to each side.
And like I said, I'm using my legs
You can do one hand over hand effleurage.
This is you always wanna go centripetal.
Centripetal means towards the heart.
You wanna make sure that the blood
is always flowing towards the heart.
So again, you can do two-handed effleurage.
You can do three strokes.
You can do hand over hand.
And I'm following the contours of her body.
You know, you wanna look for the valleys
and the hills of the body.
Like when you're on the back,
when you go against the hill,
it creates a little bit more traction.
So, this is a soft fist,
and I'm doing hand over hand fist.
And like I said, you can do two or three strokes.
You can do the lower part of the leg,
or you can and move up to the higher part.
You know, you can do some figure eights.
Another thing that I need to let you guys know for sure,
make sure that you don't put pressure on the popliteal.
That's right behind the knee.
We have blood vessels and nerves
that go right through the back of the knee,
so you never wanna put pressure on the popliteal.
So, you kind of lit up a little bit when you get there.
And again, you might wanna do like the hand over hand.
I also like to call this the ironing.
The soft fist, I like to call it the ironing.
Or you can do both.
One following the other.
This is with a soft fist.
Make sure you get the iliotibial band
which is sometimes really tight.
You can come down with a soft fist,
just really, you know, this is still an effleurage.
You can do a one-handed effleurage.
You can do about three to five strokes of each.
And inside.
So, with my left arm,
I'm doing on the inside of the leg,
and get the adductors.
And what I'm doing is I'm stepping up
if I need to go further.
And then with my right arm, I do the lateral side.
And now, I'm gonna go back and do my two-handed effleurage.
And let's say her muscles are nice and warm,
and I wanna go a little deeper.
So now, I'm gonna go with my forearm.
You can take one body section at a time.
You can do the lower leg
and then move up to the hamstrings,
or you can do it all at once.
Just don't put pressure on the popliteal and continue.
This is all legwork,
all legwork here.
Another effleurage that I like to do
to separate the gastrocnemius
is I put my thumbs next to each other.
And this really separates the gastrocnemius.
I skip the popliteal and continue to the hamstrings
all the way up.
And this is so that you never wanna put pressure
against the thumbs this way
'cause you could really damage your thumbs.
So, you wanna avoid using your thumbs
and start taking care of them since now.
So, to spread the gastrocnemius,
put the thumbs together, skip the popliteal, continue.
It's also good to do this at the soleus.
And I like to do this
like I'm pushing my fingers towards each other
for the soleus.
You're tryna spread the fibers.
Again, you go back to hand or hand.
And to tie it all together and to make your massage flow,
you wanna tie it with a long hand over hand effleurage.
So now, I've warmed up the tissue,
and I'm gonna start with petrissage.
I might need to apply a little bit more oil.
Now, I wanna go into a horse stance.
And this is the kneading, the mashing.
I'm doing like the c-bowing,
and just moving the tissue.
And I can step
towards her head.
You wanna get
inside the medial knee,
the outside, the lateral part.
You guys remember that the pes anserinus is right here
on the inside of the knee where you've got
three major muscles that insert,
so you wanna make sure and do some kneading there.
Another kneading that I like to do
or wringing, it's also known as wringing,
I like to call it the ocean waves,
is I go back and forth,
like the ocean waves,
back and forth.
This is another technique of petrissage.
Another one that I like to do is with a soft fist again,
is the pressure's coming, I don't move it,
it's static, okay?
And then, I just make my arm straight,
and then I move with my legs.
This is to get a little bit deeper.
I pick it up,
and then I move to the next section.
Move over again, I take a step up.
And sometimes, I put up my elbow so that I can push.
And remember, I'm using my whole body as a tool.
That's the beauty of massages
that we can use our body instead of just using
our shoulders and arms
because then you start getting injured.
So, this is a little bit...
And then with my left hand, a soft fist.
And I'm just
mashing,
just mashing, static.
I'm not moving.
I'm not doing this.
I'm not moving my wrist.
It's straight,
and I'm pushing with my legs.
And you can step up so you can go higher.
And if you wanna do it with both together,
that's even better, like for the hamstrings.
So, we use our body as a tool, guys.
You know,
it really gets to the muscles, it warms them up,
it starts creating more vasodilation.
This is a little bit deeper than effleurage.
Now, let's say I wanna do a couple more effleurages.
I always wanna transition with effleurage.
Another one that you wanna do is like milking,
like you're lifting and separating the tissues.
So, I'm separating the tissues.
This is another form of petrissage.
So, what I'm doing is I'm separating.
It's almost like you wanna separate
the muscles from the bone.
You know, it really helps to start separating the fibers,
lifting, kneading.
So, we've done the ocean waves
or the
friction here, the wringing.
We've done the soft fist where we pushed with our legs,
we don't move.
Oh, I know which one I forgot, the praying hands.
You put your fingers together,
and then you lift up.
So, I'm pressuring with my palms.
And that creates a little bit more traction
and a little bit more pressure.
So, this is called the praying hands.
And this one is really also very good to stimulate
and get the blood flow.
So, these are just some basic techniques
of petrissage and effleurage.
And, you know, you can do like I said.
You can do one hand over hand for the effleurage.
This is the effleurage.
I wanna go back and make sure that I go centripetal
towards the heart, pushing the blood flow back to the heart.
You can do your two-handed.
You know, you can do your ironing,
fist over fist.
You can do your forearm,
but you always push with your legs.
You can go with a left hand to do the inside of the leg,
and get the adductors too.
And then for the petrissage,
again, you can do the static,
you can do the praying hands,
you can do the wringing or the ocean waves.
And now, let's say you wanna do your friction or tapotement.
So then I go back again and do some effleurage
to tie the leg altogether,
to create a flow, a rhythm to the massage.
You know, the last thing you wanna do
is just leave a body part and say,
"Okay, go to the next, to the leg."
You always wanna have a rhythm and a flow
so that your client knows that you're done
with that body part.
One of the things I like to do
is the nerve ending strokes.
These nerve ending strokes stimulate the nerves,
and sends a message to your brain.
So, you're telling the body,
"Okay, I'm done with this part."
And so that the body can start relaxing, okay?
So anyway, that's it guys,
just some basic techniques of petrissage and effleurage,
and hope this helps you to incorporate into your practice
and until the next time.
Create a great day.