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Injury is common among manual therapists, but it can be prevented. Practitioners and students in massage, physical therapy, chiropractic and more will find proven injury prevention and ergonomics strategies in this blog by the authors of the best-selling book, Save Your Hands! 2nd Edition, Lauriann Greene and Rick Goggins. Important information for all who do manual treatments in healthcare, including massage therapists, physical therapists, chiropractors, athletic trainers, nurses, occupational therapists, hand therapists and more.
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Save Your Hands! Self-Care for Manual Th Injury Prevention & Ergonomics for Massage Therapists, Physi

English - Massage Therapy Selfcare, Ergonomics, Injury Prevention
http://massagemag.com/massage-blog/injury-prevention-ergonomics-manual-therapists/
Save Your Hands! Self-Care for · 1M ago

The Warmth of the Sun

I live in the Pacific Northwest, where we have a lot of things that make for a great quality of life. Abundant sunshine, especially in the winter and spring, is not one of them. The cold and damp can result in a lot of sore and achy muscles, which keeps the local massage therapists busy. [...]
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Save Your Hands! Self-Care for · 1M ago

Increase the Stability of Your Hands and Arms as You Work

Instability can lead to unnatural positioning, one of the main factors that contributes to work-related injury. For this reason, avoid using any technique that puts the arms and/or hands in positions that are hard to control, or causes them to wobble.  Using broad, flat areas, like the forearm or fr
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Save Your Hands! Self-Care for · 2M ago

Why I have a problem with Daylight Savings Time

I should probably clarify – I don’t actually have a problem with Daylight Savings Time itself. I like the extra daylight in the evening, since I have time to come home from work, eat dinner, and still do something outside. It’s the time change in the spring that I don’t like. I don’t do well [...]
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Save Your Hands! Self-Care for · 4M ago

R & R

I saw an interesting on-line video recently. There’s a link to at the end of this blog. (It’s a 30-minute video, so I want to give you a little preview of it so you can decide if you’re interested in watching it or not.) The speaker in the video is presenting to an audience of [...]
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Save Your Hands! Self-Care for · 5M ago

10 Ways that Learning about Self-Care Can Make You a Better Therapist

If you’ve been reading this blog for even a short while, you’ve learned the importance of self-care and injury prevention to your career longevity.  But did you ever think about how learning about this subject could actually make you a better therapist?  Here are 10 ways this can happen: Understandi
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Save Your Hands! Self-Care for · 5M ago

Static loading, saltwater taffy, and tractioning

Static loading, saltwater taffy, and tractioning: What could these three things possibly have to do with each other? I promise to tie them all together by the end of this blog post. Static loading occurs when you hold an isometric muscle contraction. One example from massage work would be tractionin
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Save Your Hands! Self-Care for · 6M ago

The (potentially) most hazardous exposure in the massage profession

You might think that, as one of the Save Your Hands bloggers, I would identify the repetitive motions of massage as the most significant injury risk that therapists face. But I think that the greatest hazard comes from a much less frequent, but potentially more injurious exposure, one that could cau
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Save Your Hands! Self-Care for · 7M ago

Knuckles, Forearms . . .Which Body Part is Best to Use to Do Massage?

It’s great that therapists are trying new ways to do massage.  In online forums and social media, we see therapists talking about, for example, how using the knuckles instead of the fingertips is the most risk-free way to do massage.  Another swears by the forearms, and yet another by avoiding the u
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Save Your Hands! Self-Care for · 7M ago

Why You Can (and Should) Stop Doing Sit-Ups

Do you hate doing sit-ups or crunches? Then I have some good news for you. According to Stuart McGill, a professor of spine biomechanics at the University of Waterloo, you shouldn’t be doing them because they can be bad for your back. Sit-up and crunches create a lot of compressive force on the inte
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Save Your Hands! Self-Care for · 7M ago

10 Great Ways to Increase Your Energy

Fatigue is a risk factor for injury, so it’s important to avoid working to the point of fatigue.  You’ll need to adjust your ergonomics and body mechanics to avoid fatigue, but you’ll also need to develop awareness of when you start to feel fatigued or your energy level is low.  When you notice that
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