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Happy New Year from Working Well Massage, 2017

Posted in Health and Wellness, Massage Therapy, Stress Management, Workplace Wellness, tagged , , on January 1, 2017| Leave a Comment »

Happy New Year from Working Well Massage!By Sue Shekut, MA, Licensed Professional Counselor, Licensed Massage Therapist, Wellness Coach, Owner, Working Well Massage

 

colorful-new-year-pictures

Happy New Year from Working Well Massage!

With each New Year we start a fresh clean calendar. We have choices on how we want to spend our time in 2017. Balancing rest and relaxation with activity allows us to maintain optimal health and better cope with stress and difficulties of life. Be good to yourself in 2017. Schedule times for relaxation, massages, and naps to balance activities and obligations as best you can. Visit us at one of our chair massage stations or your regular massage therapist as needed.

Also, remember you only have one more month to visit us in the Gold Coast. On January 31, 2017, Working Well Massage will be closing our Gold Coast location inside Whole Foods Market at 30 W. Huron at the end of January, at the request of Whole Foods management. While our staff and clients are saddened by this change, we are looking forward to continuing to serve our Chicago area clients in the Whole Foods Lincoln Park location at 1550 N Kingsbury.  And we look forward to continuing to serve our existing and future clients in your office with our on site corporate massage services.

The Working Well Massage massage team has given literally thousands of massages in the past 17 years and helped many people feel more relaxed, peaceful and cared for.

Watch this blog for more news about Working Well Massage in 2017.

 

 

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A Fond Farewell to Working Well Massage’s Gold Coast Chair Massage Location

Posted in Health and Wellness, Massage Therapy, tagged , , , , , , on December 11, 2016| 2 Comments »

By Sue Shekut, MA, Licensed Professional Counselor, Licensed Massage Therapist, Wellness Coach, Owner, Working Well Massage

I am sad to say that as of January 31, 2017, Working Well Massage will be picking up our chair massage booth and leaving the Whole Foods Market-Gold Coast location at 30 W Huron. We’ve been there for over 15 years and I leave with many happy memories of working in the booth inside this store!

WWM inside WFM Gold Coast

WWM inside WFM Gold Coast

Current Whole Foods Market Store Team Leader, John Edwards has graciously given us notice to allow us to prepare our staff and clients for the closure of our chair massage booth on January 31, 2017. According to WFM leadership, the store needs more seating space in the cafe and our booth is taking up space needed for Whole Food Shoppers to dine in the store.

WFM-Gold Coast seating

WFM-Gold Coast seating

While I am sorry we are leaving, I am extremely grateful that we’ve been able to remain in the store for the past 15 years and been able to give really great massages to WFM team members, Shoppers and to our own WWM staff! Like our clients, I have personally benefited from the convenience and affordability of being able to stop by and get a short 15-20 minute chair massage and pick up a few groceries or a nice lunch or dinner from WFM.

Working Well Massage has been a fixture at the Gold Coast WFM location since 2001, when current WFM Midwest Regional President Michael Bashaw was the Gold Coast Store Team Leader. Since then, Michael has opened numerous new Whole Food Market stores around the country (and in Canada) and WWM has given thousands of relaxing chair massages at the Gold Coast location. We’ve worked with about 7 different Store Team Leaders that have rotated through the store. It has been a very generous and wonderful partnership!

In 15 years, we have seen WFM expand into nearby Streeterville, West Loop and DePaul locations.  And WWM has also expanded, moving into the WFM in Lincoln Park. At one point, we had booths in the WFMs in South Loop, Evanston and River Forest. Once we close the WFM-Gold Coast store, however, WWM will only be in the WFM in Lincoln Park. (Unless other Chicago WFM’s decide to take us on!)

WWM inside WFM Lincoln Park

WWM inside WFM-Lincoln Park

While we are leaving WFM-Gold Coast, we are grateful to Rich Howley, for inviting into the WFM-Lincoln Park store when it relocated in 2009. Rich has been a urstwhile supporter of WWM and has gone out of his way to make us feel welcome and help us meet the needs of Lincoln Park WFM Shoppers! We are hopeful that some of our long time happy WWM clients from our Gold Coast location will make the trek in February to WFM-Lincoln Park to visit us there!

As the manager of Working Well Massage, I’ve had a number of really talented massage therapists work in our Gold Coast location. Some of them have moved on, like Heidi O’Hair to a nursing career; Ann-Marie Provost, to an entrepreneur of natural body care products, Lulu’s Conscious Skincare, in Florida; Ingrid Reyna, now an acupuncturist in AZ; and Rania Baxter who has relocated to Omaha, Nebraska to give her special smile and energy with her relaxing massages!

Luckily, many others have stayed, including Andrew Petrikiv, who will be working at the WFM-Gold Coast location until we close!

Andrew Petrikiv, LMT

Andrew Petrikiv, LMT

Andrew, our most senior massage therapist, has been with WWM for over 14 years. Andrew is seemingly ageless, and continues to provide quality, stress relieving massages, and will continue to do in at our Lincoln Park Location at 1550 N. Kingsbury inside WFM-Lincoln Park.

Najat, David McClinton, and Kimosha will remain with WWM at our Lincoln Park location. And we this past year, we added some new massage therapists with great massage skills to Lincoln Park, including Trina Sanford, Jake Frey, Starlette Ousley and Jeannie Blair. Aaron Hanna, a truly talented massage therapist and Corrective Exercise Specialist and personal trainer will continue to be working a tour Lincoln Park location as well!  David Karall, Patty Marks and Bernard Mangilin (now a massage therapist for the Chicago Bulls), will be in the booth from time to time filling in for our other regular Lincoln Park WWM massage therapists.

Please do stop by and see us before we vacate the WFM-Gold Coast store. And if anything changes or we find another location where we can reopen our Gold Coast booth, we will let you know in this blog!

 

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Last Chance for a Relaxing Chair Massage With Cindy at Working Well Massage

Posted in Health and Wellness, Massage Therapy, Stress Management, tagged , on November 20, 2016| Leave a Comment »

By Sue Shekut, MA, Licensed Professional Counselor, Licensed Massage Therapist, Wellness Coach, ACSM Personal Trainer, Owner,Working Well Massage

I am sad to say that our very own Cindy Bokhof, LMT, will be leaving Working Well Massage and Chicago. Cindy leaves us to begin the next phase of her life in Sunny Florida this Winter!

Cindy Bokhof, LMT

Cindy Bokhof, LMT

Stop by the  WWM booths inside Whole Foods Lincoln Park and Gold Coast in the next week to receive your last massage with Cindy!

Cindy will be at the WWM Lincoln Park booth on:

• Tuesday, November 22 and 29 from 12 noon-4pm,

• Wednesday, November 23 and 30, from 4-8pm

•  Friday, November 25 from 4-8pm.

Cindy will be at the  WWM booth inside Whole Foods Market Gold Coast on Saturday, November 26, from 4-8pm for the last time.

Cindy has been a valued team member and massage therapist with Working Well Massage since August, 2008. Cindy originally worked at the old Whole Foods Market Lincoln Park when it was on Sheffield. When that massage station closed, Cindy joined WWM and has worked at our South Loop (now closed), Lincoln Park and Gold Coast booths since then over the past few years.

Cindy is a warm and welcoming woman, giving very soothing relaxing massages to clients every day she has been in the booth. What many do not know is that Cindy is also a huge help to fellow WWM team members, to the WWM company and to me personally. Cindy has substituted for fellow massage therapists, staying late during emergencies, and working past her shift end time for her clients. Cindy has helped maintain and decorate the booths, helping to keep the dust and dirt that accumulates in grocery stores from building up on our screens. Cindy has set a high standard for professionalism, teamwork and skill. She always has a kind word to say, has been a great asset to WWM and has been a calm, gentle presence in the stores.

Cindy says she loves chair massage more so than table massage and will really miss Lincoln Park and Gold Coast Whole Foods Markets, her clients,  and WWM team members. Although she will soon be gone, Cindy will not be forgotten!

We wish you well, Cindy and will remember you fondly!

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Reduce Your Anxiety With Massage

Posted in Massage Research, Massage Therapy, Mental health, Stress Management, Workplace Wellness, tagged , , , on September 13, 2016| Leave a Comment »

By Sue Shekut, MA, Licensed Professional Counselor, Licensed Massage Therapist, Wellness Coach, ACSM Personal Trainer

For some time, the research behind massage therapy has shown that massage can reduce symptoms of anxiety, depression and improve the ability to get good nights sleep.

In the Institute for Integrative Health Care, Leslie DeMatteo, LMT, MS,  wrote a good article that sums up the symptoms of anxiety and explains that the way massage therapy helps is to help you sleep more soundly and massage also reduces muscle pain.  For more details, read the article here!

Massage reduces anxiety!

Massage reduces anxiety!

Want the “official word” On anxiety and massage therapy? Read the American Massage Therapy Associations position statement with multiple research articles referenced here.

If you are in Chicago and want to reduce your anxiety,  stop by one of our chair massage locations inside Whole Foods and let us help you relax…in minutes!

 

7 days a week, we reduce anxiety and muscle pain at Whole Foods Lincoln Park and Whole Foods Gold Coast

7 days a week, we reduce anxiety and muscle pain at Whole Foods Lincoln Park and Whole Foods Gold Coast

 

 

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Give the Gift of Massage From Working Well Massage

Posted in Health and Wellness, Massage Therapy, Stress Management, Wellness for Parents, Workplace Wellness, tagged , , , on December 13, 2015| 1 Comment »

By Sue Shekut, MA, Licensed Professional Counselor, Owner, Working Well Massage, Licensed Massage Therapist, Wellness Coach, ACSM Personal Trainer

For many years, we’ve been offering gift certificates for sale in our WWM booths inside Whole Foods. However, customers have asked us if there is any way they can buy gift certificates online. We are happy to report that starting today, Working Well Massage is now offering gift certificates for our chair massage stations through our website!

Brian gives a relaxing chair massage at our Lincoln Park Location

Brian gives a relaxing chair massage at our Lincoln Park Location

Giving the gift of massage for the holidays let’s you make gift giving easy and appreciated! We offer individual gift certificates in increments of 15, 20 and 30 minutes. We also offer packages of 5 gift certificates and packs of 10 in increments of 15 or 20 minutes.

When you purchase your gift certificates online they will be mailed to you within one business day, along with a WWM brochure so that your gift recipient can learn more about using our massage services before he or she comes into the booth.

To purchase your gift certificates, go to the WWM website and make your selection. The website will guide to through  the purchasing process.

 

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The Future is Bright: Evidence-Informed Massage & Fitness Magazine Brings New Light to Massage Myths

Posted in Health and Wellness, Massage Research, Massage Therapy, Wellness for Parents, tagged , , , , , , , on March 14, 2015| 4 Comments »

By Sue Shekut, MA, Licensed Professional Counselor, Owner, Working Well Massage, Licensed Massage Therapist, Wellness Coach, ACSM Personal Trainer

Massage & Fitness Magazine

Massage & Fitness Magazine

I am super excited to report that today the first issue ever of Massage & Fitness Magazine became available!  This magazine is the brainchild of Nick Ng, BA, CMT, and a host of other nationally known science-based massage therapists including Ravensara Travillian, PhD, LMP, Eric Keith Grant, PhD., Brett Jackson, BS, LMT, Alive Sanvito, LMT, and Rebecca Bishop, AS, CMT, (I’ve written about Nick’s work before, here regarding Cranial Sacral work,  and here regarding best sources for science based news. )

I am excited about this new magazine because, up until now, most massage therapy magazines provide frighteningly little science-based information.  I tend not to read them anymore because some of what is published supports myths that have been discredited in the past 5-10 years or is simply inaccurate scientifically. Health care providers have an ethical obligation to provide the most up-to-date, accurate information to clients and regurgitating pseudoscience or perpetuating potentially damaging myths does not serve massage clients well, nor does it serve massage therapists.

The first issue of Massage & Fitness has an excellent article by Alice Sanvito that explores some of the myths around massage and pregnancy. For many massage therapists, becoming certified in pregnancy massage has meant learning that massage can ‘accidentally” induce labor  yet there is no scientific evidence to support this). During my own prenatal massage training, I was told that it was best to avoid giving women massage in their first trimester  to avoid being sued if the woman miscarried. At least that instructor was honest about her reasoning. However, Alice points out that for many women, receiving massage helps them handle some of the symptoms of pregnancy including reducing feelings of nausea and giving women a feeling of being nurtured and supported

Other articles include an exploration of the science behind touch, explanations of when and how much exercise is acceptable for pregnant woman (quite a bit if already fit and the mom-to-be has no health complications), a truly wonderful explanation of massage education and the partnership of massage education and conventional medicine.

Check out Massage & Fitness Magazine here!
Disclaimer: Neither I nor Working Well Massage benefits financially from Massage & Fitness Magazine, but I do know some of the people mentioned above from social media and massage therapy advocacy. from my interactions with the editorial group, I am pleased to see that they live up to my expectations of being well-informed, clear and professional in this first edition!

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Celebrate Our 15 Year Anniversary With a Free Massage at Working Well Massage!

Posted in Health and Wellness, Massage Therapy, Stress Management, tagged , , , on January 25, 2015| Leave a Comment »

By Susan Shekut, MA, Clinical Professional Psychology, Owner, Working Well Massage, Licensed Massage Therapist, Wellness Coach, ACSM Personal Trainer

I’m happy to report that in January 2015, Working Well Massage, Inc. has been in business successfully for 15 years!

We are appreciative of all of our corporate clients, our chair massage clients at our chair stations inside Whole Foods Market and to our families and friends!

15 Free Massages to Celebrate!

To celebrate our 15 years in business successfully, we are giving away 15 fifteen-minute massages to the first 15 WWM clients who email us at info@workingwellmassage.com with the message “Free 15-Minute Massage” in the subject line.

Massages are then redeemable at either our Lincoln Park or our Gold Coast massage stations in Chicago. One 15-minute gift certificate per client. Clients must provide their full names, phone numbers and mailing addresses in their email to us in order to receive their 15-minute massage gift certificate.

Thank you Chicago area clients! We could not have done reached 15 years in business without you!

A Shout Out to Working Well Massage Staff

Working Well Massage is proud to have highly skilled, talented massage therapists on our team, but we are not only proud of our staff because they give great massages. We also think they are great people! Without infringing on the privacy of our staff, we do want to give them a shout out and tell you about some of their accomplishments.

First off, through the years we have had a few team members that are veterans of the U.S Armed Forces. One of our team members has volunteered his time and effort to help out fellow veterans through the years. We also have had a number of our staff active in the arts community, with some of our staff also accomplishing some fame as actors, singers, dancers and writers. Other staff members teach yoga, provide personal training and corrective exercise. Some of our staff were born and raised in far off lands like Russia, the Ukraine, Morocco and Indiana. 🙂 We know that moving to a different country, learning a new language and becoming a U.S. citizen is a huge brave undertaking and we are super proud of our team members that have made the move and now work with us to provide our clients with relaxation and pain relief!

We also proud of our staff that have taught in area massage schools and provide mentoring to fellow massage therapists at WWM and in the general massage community.  Many of our massage therapists are active in massage organizations, advocating for other massage therapists and providing free massages at charity events from time to time. And a few of our team members have left the massage field to go on to nursing, business, acupuncture and counseling fields. We miss them and wish them well!

Working Well Massage Clients

Through the years, we have given massages at five different Whole Foods Market locations and currently have booths in two Whole Foods stores, the Gold Coast and Lincoln park Locations. We are super appreciative of our successful partnership with Whole Foods Markets and look forward to many more years of providing Whole Foods shoppers and team members with our relaxing massages.

get-a-massage-header

Working Well Massage has also been privileged to provide Chicago area workers with massage throughout the Chicagoland area for the past 15 years. To protect the privacy of our corporate clients, we do will no list specific names, but we will say that we are happy to be part of the wellness initiative at several successful financial firms, marketing and advertising agencies, Chicagoland area schools, at police stations and firehouses, mental health centers, hospitals, universities,  healthcare firms, software firms, publishing houses, photo studios, tax firms, condo associations, and manufacturing and distribution firms.

Multi-ethnic business portrait

We enjoy working with all of our clients and we believe that their success is as important as our success. So we hope that our relaxation and pain management massage services helps their staff be productive, happy and able to keep their companies working well!

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Moving Bones in Your Skull or Just Gentle Touch and a Quiet Spirit–Cranial Sacral Therapy Explored

Posted in Health and Wellness, Massage Research, Massage Therapy, Stress Management, tagged , , , , , on November 16, 2014| 1 Comment »

By Susan Shekut, MA, Clinical Professional Psychology, Owner, Working Well Massage, Licensed Massage Therapist, Wellness Coach, ACSM Personal Trainer

In Cranial Therapy Discredited, one of my favorite science-based authors, Nick Ng, writes about the likely mechanism for client improvement in cranial sacral therapy… it really is likely all in your head (bad pun intended)! Nick explains that proponents of cranial sacral therapy claim that bones in our heads need to be moved to keep us healthy. Yet science has yet to show this to be true. First off, adult skull bones are fused and do not move. At all. Unless they move in unison with your head (when nodding and shaking your head, your whole skull moves).  Secondly, the idea of people moving cerebral spinal fluid via small hand movements defies what we know of science.

That all said, for some, laying on a massage table for an hour, having a kind person gently hold and rock the body can be relaxing all by itself. And in our hectic modern lives, being gently held and therapeutically touched for a period of time, away from cell phones, family obligations, work stress and traffic, is something people pay money for.

Read Nick Ng’s entire article here. Nick is a fitness trainer, bodyworker, and science writer.

Nick Ng, photo by Writerscsasozi

Nick Ng, photo by Writerscsasozi

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Who Can We Believe About Our Health?

Posted in Health and Wellness, Massage Research, tagged , , , , on October 7, 2014| Leave a Comment »

By Susan Shekut, MA, Clinical Professional Psychology, Owner, Working Well Massage, Licensed Massage Therapist, Wellness Coach, ACSM Personal Trainer

Recently I came across an article from one of my favorite blogs, Sciencebasedmedicine.org.  The post, The Role of Anecdotes in Science Based Medicine” struck a chord with me. In the world of massage therapy and complimentary or alternative medicine, anecdotes are the main source of “proof.” For example, I hear people say, “My friend went to this lady who did Reiki on her and she recovered from her fibromyalgia…after a while. It must be the Reiki!” Or, “I’ve been drinking this (coconut water, gogi juice, kombuchu) and now my (skin, bowels, emotional state) is much improved. It must be the coconut water. I am buying a case.” Or, of course, “Dr. Oz says…”

I’ve learned to be skeptical of websites touting the latest cure/fad/craze of some new miracle drug/herb, supplement/technique that cures all ills based on anecdotal evidence. When actual medical scientific research is conducted (not a You Tube video of a guy in a lab dressed up in a white lab coat waving at some machines), there tends to be no evidence, weak evidence, or no effect beyond placebo, to show that the claims have any validity. To put it in old-fashioned terms, it’s usually snake oil. But some people believe the snake oil claims more than they believe medical science. Why is that?

People that do not understand science do not trust it, understandably. Some point to an article of a scientist selling out his research to Big Pharm to justify their general mistrust of science and research.  However, this ignores the many scientists who don’t sell out. Or people firmly believe their own experiences and do not question the sequence of events that led to a miracle cure. Yet our experiences may be colored by our perceptions and may not be as objective as we think!

For example, let’s say I fall and hit my knee, which proceeds to swell up. I take a few ibuprophin pills and put an ice pack on my knee.

About 20 minutes later a shaman friend stops by and I ask him to help me. He waves his hands over my knee and chants something mystical sounding. Soon I look at my knee and wow, the swelling is going down!  So, was it the ibuprofen (which takes about 20-30 minutes  to take effect), the ice pack (which also takes time to take effect), or the shamans hand-waving chant-making that reduced the swelling? In such a situations, it is hard to tell. But in retelling the story, if all I recall is the shaman because that was the most unusual and memorable portion of the experience, then it may seem as the shaman did the healing. And, if the shaman was kind to me and I felt cared for, that also may lend me to want to believe it was his actions.

Many anecdotes (stories of someone’s experience) of non-science based healing may leave out the important elements of what helped someone heal. The person retelling the story may not recall the boring normal medical aids they used to overcome an illness or injury. Instead they recall the fantastical interventions because they make a better story and can serve to “prove” to themselves, if not others, that magical cures do work. The only people talking about the miracles of ibuprofen are on television commercials theses days.  People in 2014 are so familiar with over-the-counter drugs like Ibuprofen, that it no longer amazes us that a small pill can reduce physical pain! If you think about it, to a Highlander in 1744, ibuprofen would have been magic or witchcraft. But in 2014, we have research studies showing that ibuprofen works well on most pain for most people and we have science that explains how it works biochemically. Science explains that which was once magical, and also allows us to distinguish between that which is real and that which is folklore.

An attitude of skepticism is a sign of a good scientist and a careful consumer. Let research inform our choices of  health care services, not good marketing, celebrity endorsements or anecdotes alone.

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Sports Massage Should Not Be Painful–An Awesome Science-Based Explanation of Sports Massage

Posted in Fitness, Health and Wellness, Massage Therapy, tagged , , , on August 30, 2014| 5 Comments »

By Susan Shekut, MA, Clinical Professional Psychology, Owner, Working Well Massage, Licensed Massage Therapist, Wellness Coach, ACSM Personal Trainer

For the record, sports massage should not be painful. Let me say it again. Sports massage should not be painful. Especially not excruciatingly so!

Sports Massage of lower legs muscles post race

Sports Massage of lower legs muscles post-race.

Journalists tend to write about massage as though it were an endurance sport, rather than a therapeutic tool. Which is unfortunate, because while articles like “The Sheer Hell of a Sports Massage,”   are humorous, they also provide a great deal of misinformation and may cause people to fear massage. The article author,  Andrew Griffiths, writes that he found sports massage to be a hellish pain to be endured. He also provides a fair amount of inaccurate information about sports massage removing “toxins,” and “realigning the muscle tissue and connective tissue  fibres” and describes being misdiagnosed (inaccurately, yet unknowingly) by his sports massage therapist as having plantar fascilitis.  Sadly, this author’s understanding of sports massage was not enhanced by his experience with Vaska, his “sports” massage therapist.

Hopefully, however, the author, Mr. Griffiths, and readers, will pay more attention to the comment on the article made by a fellow science-based massage therapist, Jason Erickson.

Mr Erickson, massage therapist, personal trainer, former competitive athlete, therapist educator, and sports therapist for elite athletes clearly, concisely refutes most of Mr. Griffith’s points and explains that sports massage should not be painful.

As Mr. Erickson’s comment is so articulately written, yet it is buried under ads and other links to articles on The Telegraph, I am reposting the main points of his comment with credits to Jason Erickson. In his comment, Mr Erickson notes:

When working with athletes (and those aspiring to become athletes), a competent sports therapist focuses on restoring/improving function as quickly as possible with minimal risk of causing tissue damage, nor of reinforcing neurological protective responses to innocuous sensory input. As a protective output of the brain in response to perceived threat, pain is something that competent sports therapists should seek to avoid triggering in their clients. There are many, many ways to achieve positive results without pain being a component of the treatment experience, and in my experience pain usually indicates that I need to adjust what I am doing to minimize/prevent it.

In this article, Mr. Griffiths also stated, “Sports massage works deep in the muscles, realigning the muscle fibres and connective tissue, and flushing away the toxins. Regular sessions will increase joint mobility and flexibility, and reduce the risk of injury during exercise.”

Not one part of this statement is correct. Thirty years ago, these are things that were believed, but science has advanced considerably since then. I don’t know where the author encountered these claims, but I question the veracity of his source(s).

It would have been more accurate to restate that paragraph thus: “Sports massage works with all of the body’s tissues, from superficial to deep, often via neurophysiological mechanisms. Functional changes in the recruitment of muscular, vascular, and other systems may accompany reduced pain and improved performance. The nature and timing of sports massage sessions may vary considerably depending on the athlete’s training/competition schedule, and a good sports massage therapist will be prepared to educate the athlete accordingly.”

If you take the time to read the initial article, hopefully for the laugh factor, it is worth your time to scroll down to Mr Erickson’s comment and read a more realistic, (albeit less humorous) explanation of sports massage. If you are an athlete, or have any muscle related pains, you will be glad you educated yourself about sports massage so that you can find a sports massage therapists like Jason Erickson, not like Vaska, to save you from painful, potentially damaging,  sports massage!

And how do you find a knowledgeable, science-based massage therapist like Jason Erickson, versus a novice with a poor understanding of human anatomy, massage therapy and the nervous system like Vaska?

First off, when you call a massage therapist to book an appointment, ask him or her questions about training, their experience with athletes and how they view pain in massage. If the massage therapist tells you something like, “no pain no gain,” hang up the phone (after saying goodbye politely) and call another massage therapist!

If the massage therapist tells you that he or she will work to help relax your nervous system while they work and aim to reduce your pain, not increase it, then you have a good chance of receiving an excellent sports massage!

Readers, what is your experience with sports massage?

 

Jason Erickson

Jason Erickson, NCTMB, CPT, CES, BBA, BA, AA

More About Jason Erickson

… from his company website, Keep in Touch Massage Eagan, MN
Jason Erickson, NCTMB, CPT, CES, BBA, BA, AA

Originally from Rochester, Jason studied Pre-Law, Marketing and Economics for his undergraduate degrees by day while practicing martial arts and vocal performance by night. He pursued a corporate career until he discovered the benefits of therapeutic massage and corrective exercise while rehabilitating from some injuries. Inspired, Jason became a certified personal trainer (CPT), then entered massage school and graduated Magna Cum Laude from Northwestern Health Sciences University.

Jason loves continuing education and may be found teaching classes when he isn’t attending one! He holds National Certification in Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork (NCTMB), certification in Bodywork for the Childbearing Years® (pregnancy massage), Myofascial/Fascial Release, American Council on Exercise Personal Training (ACE-CPT), and is a certified Corrective Exercise Specialist (CES) with the National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM). He has also studied orthopedic massage, sports massage, positional release technique, dermoneuromodulation, structural integration, assessment and treatment of headaches and neck problems, foot/ankle/knee injuries, massage for cancer patients, etcetera. Jason is also an advanced practitioner of Active Isolated Stretching, a powerful method of increasing pain-free range-of-motion, strength, balance, and neuromuscular integration and function.

 

Related articles

• Massage Myths That Need to Be Trashed by Nick Ng.

• Toxins, Schmoxins by Paul Ingraham

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