Pregnancy is accompanied by thousands of emotional and physical changes. Even the “easiest” and “best” ones come with an array of challenges. An effective prenatal massage therapist can help with these challenges, both throughout your three trimesters and after pregnancy. In decades past, most women were advised to avoid massage during the first trimester. Medical studies have since found that as long as you are healthy, massage during the first trimester is totally okay! Read More This Blog
Bodyworks DW has always used
fair hiring practices. What this means is, we review applicants based on their
qualifications and experiences. We find that it’s best to put the focus on the
ability to do the job. You end up with a diverse staff of people from all walks
of life.
Back in June, our C.E.O and
owner David Weintraub made a statement on racial injustice, inequality, and
anti-racism in wellness. He outlined how the company hopes to be more vocal on
these types of social issues. In it, he states “Black lives matter. Period, end
stop.” and highlights our plans for change. You can read the entire post here.
We’ve added an important note
about being anti-racist and anti-sexist to our mission statement. Generally
speaking, if you’re a human and are in pain, our goal has always been to help
you by providing massage therapy with long term solutions. In order to ensure
we deliver the best possible care as healthcare providers, it’s important that
we set biases to the side. We strive to both promote anti-racism in wellness
and diversity in our workplace and create a known safe space with intentional
anti-racist and anti-sexist policies. Read our full mission statement here.
Speaking of our anti-racist and
anti-harassment policies, we’ve added a page to our website that describes this
in detail. We want to make sure staff and clients alike know Bodyworks DW is a
space completely intolerant of ignorance. Click here to read the entire pledge.
If you look on our website and
click on our page titled Actions For Progressive
Social Change, you can see the list of organizations such as
the ACLU that we support and proudly
donate to regularly.
Read More....
David
Weintraub, LMT and owner of Bodyworks DW, writes about post massage self care
and how you can take the benefits of your medical massage home with you. Stay
ahead of your pain!
Medical
massage in New York with a NYC licensed massage therapist should
be a regular and valuable part of your self care routine. Let’s face it...New
Yorkers are not known for doing things gently. We work long hours, slam weights
at the gym, and then maybe hit back to back yoga classes. And while this
additive approach to health does have it’s benefits, it’s not restorative. Our
bodies need time to heal. To help with that, here are some of our best post
massage self care practices to take the benefits your medical massage home with
you!
A great
medical massage helps to relax both your muscles and your nervous system. It
gives your brain time to switch out of your sympathetic nervous system (fight
or flight!). And engages your parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest)
in a way that has benefits for long after the massage.
In a
perfect world we would all get massages every other day and feel fantastic 🙂 Given the
reality of time and money this is simply not going to happen. However, there
are plenty of practices you can take on to extend the great results of your
massage between sessions. These will assist you in feeling great, allow you to
go longer between massages, and help keep you from getting injured.
Post
Massage Self Care: Practices to take the benefits of medical massage home with
you
Lying
Down with Your Feet up on a Chair
This is the
number 1 homework assignment we give to all of our stressed out massage
clients! It’s super easy, and it’s a great excuse to chill out a bit every day.
We spend so much time sitting that our muscles get locked up tight in a sitting
position. Which helps us to sit, but is terrible for just about everything else
we try to do.
Lying down
with you lower legs on a chair puts us in the same position as sitting but
without needing to hold ourselves up in gravity. It passively shortens our
psoas muscle (main hip flexor), quads, hamstrings, and calves. When you shorten
a muscle but don’t make it do any work it gets to completely relax. It usually
takes 4-5 minutes for your nervous system to chill enough to truly let go of
your muscles. We recommend doing this for 5-8 minutes every night before bed to
help you get a really good night's sleep.
All of our clients who have taken this
practice on notice huge results in about 2-3 weeks. Decreased
low back pain or tension, better sleep, easier mood.
1. Use
self-massage
If
you’re experiencing neck or back pain during your flight, you can also try
giving yourself a massage. An easy way to do this is to pack a tennis ball in
your carry-on and use it to massage your shoulders and between your lower back
and the seat. A tennis ball is all you need to really loosen up your muscles.
Many airports offer massages, and it can be tempting to get one before a
flight. However, this will only help a bit at the beginning of the flight and
disappear by the end of it. Instead, try
getting a professional massage the evening that you land.
You’ll wake up refreshed and ready!
2.
Try to sleep in a natural position
It
can be difficult to stay comfortable during your flight. Try not to twist or
contort your body as you’re looking for a good position to rest. As much as you
can, sit with your seat reclined and your body aligned. Here’s where a neck
pillow can really help to keep your spine straight and forward as much as
possible.
3. Order
your favorite beverage and snack
Stay
relaxed by ordering your favorite beverage and snack, so that you can enjoy the
flight. Stress can be a major factor when it comes to back pain, so do whatever
stress-free activities you like. Stay relaxed, watched a movie, enjoy a snack –
whatever makes you feel comfortable.
4. Upgrade
to first class
If
you’re really struggling with pain on a flight, you can also try to get
upgraded to first class, where the seats are wider and more comfortable. You
can do this by using your airline points, paying more or bringing a doctor’s
note that explains your back condition. Find a way to get a more comfortable
seat. Sometimes the investment of first class can make a huge difference to
your pain.
5. Stay
hydrated throughout your flight
It’s
easy to get dehydrated on a flight. Be sure to ask for water, or bring an empty
water bottle through security to later fill with water. For a long flight, it’s
important to continue to drink fluids. This will prevent your muscles from
getting stiff or tense during those long hours.
For your next flight, follow these nine
tips to keep your neck and back pain away. If you struggle with neck and back
pain on a regular basis, you should also consider seeing a chiropractor.
A chiropractic clinic can give you professional medical advice about whether
you need an adjustment, as well as creating a care plan that involves massage,
diet, exercise, and supplements. Don’t just cross your fingers that your pain
will go away, make an appointment before your upcoming trip.
If your trip takes you to New York City,
book a professional deep tissue massage in Midtown or the Financial District
with a highly trained massage therapist at Bodyworks DW Advanced Massage
Therapy.
How we Use the Newest Science in our Sessions
At Bodyworks DW, a top rated massage therapy
studio in New York NYC, our therapists stay abreast of peer-reviewed, current research.
These science-backed findings are integrated into your sessions. They also help
to provide insight into the pain or discomfort you are feeling.
The best massage therapists are able to
understand scientific literature as it relates to human anatomy. And be able to
explain it to you in simpler language that is easy to understand.
Bodyworks DW therapists are ready to help you
find out if massage therapy could be a positive factor in your life as well.
The goals of the best massage therapists in New York City are to help you
achieve your personal health and life goals. If you see a Bodyworks DW massage
therapist in Midtown NYC or in the Financial District, you can be confident you
are receiving the highest quality care.
Would you like to schedule a professional
massage with a top rated massage therapist in New York City? In addition to our
original Financial District location, you can find the best massage therapist
near midtown west now too–our new studio here just recently opened! Contact
Bodyworks DW today or click on the button to book online at our massage Midtown
or massage Fidi studios!
Diastasis Recti is most common among pregnant
or postpartum women. About two thirds of pregnant women have it. So why have
you never heard of it? People don’t talk about it! And hardly anyone knows that massage
therapy for diastasis recti can help.
Diastasis Recti is a condition where the
rectus abdominis splits down the middle causing a vertical gap in the abdominal
muscles. It can cause lower back pain, constipation, and urine leaking. It can
even make it harder to breathe and to move normally.
Massage therapy for Diastasis Recti can be
very helpful to rebuild proper abdominal tone as long as you’re also working
with a physical therapist who specializes in this issue. An experienced massage
therapist can open stuck tissues that are pulling the abdominal muscles
outward. These stuck tissues are generally from previous injuries that have
left scar tissue behind. In addition to this kind of bodywork, you’ll need
physical therapy exercises to knit the torn muscles back together.
It’s counter-intuitive, but doing “ab”
exercises such as sit ups, or pilates, can often make the problem worse.
Without proper firing of the correct support muscles, these exercises often
pull outwards on the linea alba (centerline where the gap develops). This can
either increase the separation, or keep it from knitting back together.
A combination of massage and physical therapy
can speed up the healing process considerably. In most cases it will open up
the stuck tissues that would keep physical therapy exercises from working. The
synergy between the two modalities is worth way more than the sum of the parts.
Because massage therapy is an “opening”
practice. Our training is in releasing tissues that are either tight (ie
over-firing) or stuck (ie glued with scar tissue). We also work to retrain the
nervous system to allow muscles that are over-firing to relax and settle into a
balanced tone. Restrictions elsewhere in your body such as rounded shoulders,
tight hips, and misaligned ankles can all create stress on the abs and pull
them further apart. Working on opening movement in these areas will allow the
body to conversely work on closing the diastasis.
Physical
Therapy is a “closing” practice. It’s based in strengthening and tightening
muscles that are weak (ie under-firing). The repetition of certain exercises
draw blood flow to areas that need it, allowing the body to heal and
reconstruct itself.
Competitive athlete? Weekend warrior?
Recreational fitness enthusiast? At Bodyworks DW, we work with a wide variety
of active individuals. Our therapists provide custom-designed sports massage sessions
focused on helping you maximize your activity enjoyment. This can include
sessions for injury recovery, injury prevention, tune-ups and maintenance.
Sports massage in NYC for active people and athletes is hardly a luxury – it’s
an investment!
Sports massage for athletes provides targeted,
therapeutic treatment tailored to the bio mechanics and physical needs of the
athlete. In other words, it’s not going to be like your typical fluff n’ buff
spa massage 😉 You’re going to be moving around a bit for
analysis. You and your therapist will be working together on increasing range
of motion and unwinding injuries. And you’re going to get some homework!
Curious how a sports massage for athletes in
NYC might work for you? We’ve taken some of our most common client-athlete
cases and given you a run-down of how a sports massage could benefit each one.
Keep reading more to dive in!
I’ve had a lot to think about
in my experiences both working with PTSD clients and also living and working
through the last year of covid-19 crisis. The following is theory based on
anecdotal data and a lot of scientific reading. Yes I’ve seen it play out with
hundreds of clients but I don’t have the time or resources for a true
scientific study. So I want to make that clear. But I think it’s a useful
paradigm to try out and see what insights it may give us about ourselves and
our stress.
We really like to convince ourselves
that we are very evolved, and in a lot of ways that is true. We build fantastic
machines that perform relative miracles to anything we could conceive of in
primitive times. Intellectually, most of us understand that we need thoughtful
solutions to modern problems. Including working together as a team on projects
that improve our safety and daily lives.
However, a lot of the older
nervous system programming shows up under stress and can cause a reversion to
our less evolved selves.
10,000 years ago, most problems
required a physical solution. Think about pre-tool making. You either gather
fruit and other edible plants, or physically catch, wrestle, and kill your
food. Or both. In order to hunt (or avoid being hunted), you needed three basic
skills: hiding, running, and fighting.
These three skills show up in
all animals as instincts and we are no exception. While most of us have learned
to largely tame them, they still show up in small and medium ways.
DW: I’m going to show a quick foot
retracting exercise that I give to a lot of clients to rehab an old ankle
sprain or to help find better balance in their feet.
Most of us in some point in our life have had an ankle
sprained or two or ten and that causes the ankle almost all the time to roll
outwards this way. You have a compensation that your brain does rather than
leave your foot rolling out sideways because it doesn’t feel right just walking
on the edge. And that is to externally rotate your hip or your knee or both and
that allows the foot to fall more that way.
You’ll see some clients will show you this one foot out
other clients will show you the other and some show both, right? This is really
a long-term compensation for a stuck ankle that never got unstuck. What’s
supposed to happen when you walk is that you roll through the ball of your big
toe when you come forward that way right and that should stay contacting as the
very last thing until you bring your foot forward.
With an old ankle sprain you’ll get some version of this
and that big toe never contacts the floor completely. And so to relearn how to
do that I have a very simple exercise!
Great massage therapy in NYC needs to have a solid arsenal of techniques. And tools to be able to create an effective and thorough treatment plan. At Bodyworks DW, we have regular advanced trainings for all of our massage therapists. These trainings are designed to improve each therapist’s skills in assessing the primary sources/reasons for your pain. Our therapists come prepared with a toolbox full of the best deep tissue massage techniques.
Back pain is a prevalent issue addressed by
massage therapists for many of you. Each of your massage needs and cases are
unique. Therefore, each of our treatments are uniquely customized to you. Your
Bodyworks DW massage therapist will carefully consider your symptoms, history,
routine and movement patterns. Then they determine how to provide the most
effective treatment. We are dedicated to finding what will work best for you.
So that you can get back to moving more freely and without pain or discomfort.
We offer back pain massage in Midtown and the Financial District in New
York City. Would you like to schedule a professional massage with one of our
highly trained massage therapists? Contact Bodyworks
DW today or click
on the button to book online at our back pain massage Midtown or back pain
massage Fidi studios!
Read More ..
Competitive triathlete? Long distance runner? Swimmer? Road cyclist or Peloton junkie? At Bodyworks DW, our therapists provide custom-designed sports massage sessions focused on helping you maximize your activities. Sessions can include massage for injury recovery, injury prevention, tune-ups and maintenance. Sports massage for triathletes is hardly a luxury – it’s an investment!
Update April 2021: Massage for triathletes and other endurance sports is especially important right now after months of being indoors! As we all try to restart our exercise routines, we could all use a tune up 🙂
Swimming, biking, running…triathletes are the workhorses of the athletic community. With super long training routines! Two of these three activities are lower body heavy. However, the swimming portion means that your upper body and arms should certainly not be ignored. Great sports massage therapists also understand how important your breath and core are in any of these activities.
We definitely want to address your chief complaints like sore knees and hips. But we also want to get to the root of why you may be continually experiencing soreness. Or why you are starting to feel less refreshed after your runs or swims. This is often where breath and core awareness come into the picture. Sports massage for triathletes focuses on helping them balance the issues that each discipline causes.
Read More… sports massage in NYC
According to studies completed by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, musculoskeletal disorders cost approximately $15 billion in workers’ compensation costs each year. Per data collected in 2013, musculoskeletal disorders also accounted for about 33% of all office injury and illness cases. The most common of these injuries are related to the neck, shoulders and back. In addition, sedentary time and time in front of screens has only increased over the years.
Today, the work hard, play hard and hustle mentalities are the foremost attitudes adopted by many New Yorkers. We spend a lot of time sitting in front of computers, on phones and handling stressful situations. The pile up is causing more and more office related injuries. What can you do to help alleviate your pain? Seek out a medical massage in New York City!
Read More... medical massage therapists in midtown
In response to the latest reporting on the transmissibility of the Delta variant for covid-19, we are returning to our previous masking policy. Going forward, all clients and therapists will be required to wear a mask at our studios both in the waiting area and during treatment.
NYS’s lifted mandated covid safety guidelines for most businesses on May 19th. In accordance with the newest CDC guidelines. What this means is that businesses now have the option to either continue their existing safety protocols. Or to establish their own. The only true mandates on most businesses are that non-vaccinated patrons must continue to wear a mask and socially distance wherever possible. And for vaccinated massage clients, there are no longer any NYS mandates.
That being said, we are going to gradually scale back our existing covid safety plan. So, for the most part, we will be keeping our existing plan. There are some immediate changes, specifically to mask policy for vaccinated massage clients.
These are minor, but ones that we see as easy to make in the current environment. IE very low viral spread in NYC and continuing to drop.
These are exciting times after so much turmoil! Getting used to these new changes may take time. And that many of you will need some time to adjust. Feeling safe without a mask is a new idea. You can read about just how amazingly effective the new vaccines are here: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/health-departments/breakthrough-cases.html
Like a lot of us, I’ve asked my body to keep up with me in ways it might not have expected. I’ve met what seems like every kind of doctor there is searching for answers. I wish my family had gotten me a massage gift card earlier!
Here’s what I was told
by traditional medicine
1.
Stop what you’re doing, it’s stupid. (I’m a
modern/contemporary dancer)
2.
Surgery is the only way to fix this. (surgery, small or large
scale, is invasive and generally the most expensive and time consuming route to
healing)
3.
Wear a hard cast on both feet (???) for two months to reset
them….
BASICALLY, I WAS LEFT LIVING IN PAIN WITH NO WAYS OUT
THAT WORKED FOR ME. I ACCEPTED THIS AS REALITY AND CONTINUED ONWARD. BY LETTING
MY PAIN BECOME THE NORM.
This experience was shared among
my college peers. We ignored our pain. My friends and I didn’t have the time to
research our options or the finances to invest in our bodies. Money was tight
and my shoulders were tighter. It didn’t cross my mind once to ask for help
(typical college student, right??).
So I trucked along silently. If
someone had just validated my pain and set me in the right direction it might
have been a completely different story.
Ahem….a massage
gift card would have been nice.
