Neck Pain Massage Therapy: Designing Effective Lasting Treatments

 

Why effective neck pain massage therapy shouldn’t focus exclusively on your neck

Neck pain is a very common issue. Our phones and devices are constantly pulling our attention. Our head follows our eyes putting us in a “head forward” position. This pulls the muscles in the back of your neck into a constant stretch. And makes them work extra hard to fight the weight of your head. Muscles hate being stretched and working hard. So they yell at you with achy pain. Thankfully, neck pain massage in New York and can be an effective and lasting treatment…when done properly.

Does this sound like you?

a) Sitting at a desk staring at your screen for 40+ hours a week
b) Looking down at your phone multiple times a day
c) Reading your tablet in bed while propping your head up on a pillow

All of these habits tighten your anterior neck muscles (the ones in front). While simultaneously pulling on the posterior neck muscles (the ones in back).

For More Information: Neck Pain Massage Therapy

Massage Therapy for Ankle Sprains: Advice for Runners

Massage Therapy for Ankle Sprains: what to do from the moment you get injured…

Massage therapy for ankle sprains wasn’t my intended topic this week. Then I took a bad fall in a parkour class trying to jump a 12 foot gap. (I made it 11′ 9″). I’ve now got about 6-8 weeks of healing, before exercising again in any weight-bearing or high impact capacity. And definitely won’t be doing the NYC Marathon this year. Based on my own professional assessment, anyway.

It’s also timely and useful for those of you currently training for the NYC Marathon or the Ironman Triathlon to know a bit more about treating ankle sprains.

Update August 2020: Sadly, there will not be an NYC Marathon this year due to COVID-19! Our advice is to take training slowly and use the break this gives as a way to avoid injury next year 

I know that there is a lot of info out there about what to do and what not to do. And mub ch of this info is confusing and conflicting. So I’m going to walk you through what to do based on the most recent science. And show you when to add in massage therapy for ankle sprains. Using my own injury as an example.

For More Information: Massage Therapy NYC

Winter & Workouts = Shoulder Pain! Here’s How to Fix It with Massage for Shoulder Pain!

Your Shoulders and Winter are not good friends…

Have you booked a massage for shoulder pain session yet this winter? If not, you’ll probably feel like we are psychics about how your shoulders are feeling right about now…

It’s that most wonderful time of year…okay, actually it’s not all that wonderful right now.

The holidays are over, it’s real cold, and your are deep into new year projects, stress, and pressure.

And we’ve still got several weeks to go 😬🤒

Add in indoor exercise to that (weightlifting, yoga, boxing, Crossfit) and you’ve got a perfect recipe for shoulder pain and injuries…..

Winter Shoulder Pain Recipe

• 1/4 cup “lifting shoulders due to cold”

• 1 cup “stressing at work” which engages our fight/flight response and lifts the shoulders

• 1 tablespoon “indoor exercise” which impacts shoulders more intensely (due to the other above ingredients)…

This recipe leads to overuse injuries such as rotator cuff tears, biceps tendonitis, and bursitis. 

What you get when this cake is baked is “I don’t know what happened….but my right (or left) shoulder just started hurting…..HELP!”

Shoulder Pain in Winter: What YOU can do about it

If you haven’t gotten to the pain level yet, congrats!

If you don’t want to get there, come see us for massage therapy for shoulder pain (or any other pains you are dealing with). In the meantime, the following will absolutely help to prevent further injury:

Invest in a good winter coat, hat, scarf (no, really)

• Fashion is cool and all…and usually cold too. You may not like wearing a parka, or messing up your hair with a hat, but your shoulders will thank you if you are warm enough.
• Your body is dealing with cold that it’s not insulated against.
• Our nervous system is hardwired to “protect the important bits” (ie your head and your trunk where all of your important organs are).
• It raises the arms and shoulders in a self hug to bring more body heat to your brain (the most important bit) and lungs.
• This is brain stem level instinctual….if your body is cold enough to be scared of hypothermia it will raise your shoulders no matter how much you want them not to.

For More Information: Shoulder Pain Massage

The Benefits of Realignment: Massage Therapy for Feet and Ankles

Your feet are your foundation for upright posture: Invest in massage therapy for your feet and ankles!

Very often someone will ask me: if I could only have one area of my own body worked on, which one would I choose? And more or less always, I respond that I would choose massage therapy for feet and ankles.

Surprised? So are most of the people who ask! But I can’t think of any part of my body that has worked harder than my feet and ankles. Stints in pointe shoes and training for marathons immediately come to mind as the biggest demands I’ve placed on them. But still, they support me as I walk at least 10,000 steps every day up and down the New York City streets.

But even if I’d never danced or run competitively, or walked as much as I do, my feet and ankles are still the foundation for the entire weight of my body. They absorb information from the ground so that the nervous system can create standing posture all the way up the skull. And if something is less optimal with your feet and ankles, your posture will change to compensate. Just imagine what would happen if there were a problem or weakness in the foundation of a building. Similarly, issues in the feet and ankles can lead to a cascade of dysfunctions throughout the body. Massage therapy for feet and ankles can create profound improvements in our posture and movement.

More Information: Massage Therapy New York

Massage Therapy for your Office Injury: Why they occur and how to stop them!

Meghan Krupka

Meghan Krupka, LMT, talks about the demands of your job, the toll it can take on your body, and the office injury it may come with.




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!

Our bodies are designed to move and be dynamic!

However, modern day work and office culture emphasizes sitting for long periods of time. Prolonged sitting wreaks havoc on our spines. This creates muscle imbalances and restricts our ability to move easily. Over time poor posture can lead to an office injury and inhibit our enjoyment of daily life.

Massage therapy, particularly medical massage, offers a holistic approach to combating office injuries and postures. It goes beyond addressing just the symptoms of your pain. Medical massage can also address emotional issues related to pain and stress such as depression, anxiety and poor sleep. These are also commonly tied to office stressors.

First things: what exactly do we mean by posture? And “good” posture?

Posture refers to how you hold yourself upright. It is how you carry yourself both in motion, stillness, and rest. Posture is dynamic, it is not static. Even when you are still, your muscles are working in concert to keep you upright.

Posture is also your body’s response to any resistance that tries to disrupt your balance. The most well-known resistive force is, of course, gravity 🙂 Our posture is also a collection of our physical and emotional habits in relation to others.

Having “good” posture then means your body is able to adapt to the physical and emotional stresses imposed on it. Without causing you pain. It needs to be able to do this dynamically. “Good” posture is being able to move and change your shape to minimize stress. The “best” posture for any given situation is the most efficient. The one that needs the least muscular force and uses the least amount of energy to sustain.

Therefore, “poor” posture would be highly habitual shapes that overuse muscles and energy to resist outside stressors. The result is an uncomfortable shape. Over time the discomfort will progress to pain or office injury. These “poor” postures frequently arise in an office environment. Let’s face it, our bodies were not designed to sit for long periods. If they were, we’d probably be shaped like a weeble wobble!

Upper Crossed Syndrome: hunched shoulders, rounded back and forward head posture

Upper crossed syndrome is your typical upper body desk posture after a long day of staring at the screen. You are leaning in close to your computer, shoulders rolled forward, head and neck craning towards your screen and upper back is rounding. In this position, your front (anterior) muscles are in a contracted or shortened position. Your back (posterior) muscles are being overstretched. This postural habit, when prolonged, frequently results in neck, shoulder and back pain. It can even end up restricting breathing.

Medical massage therapy in New York City is great for lengthening and encouraging the muscles that are shortened to release. Great medical massage therapists will also provide at-home corrective exercises to address the stretched muscles. These often need strengthening and activation exercises to fully address upper crossed syndrome.  These are great ways to combat your office injury.

In an office or desk setting, upper crossed syndrome can often go hand in hand with lower crossed syndrome.

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Prenatal Massage: A Guide to a Peaceful Pregnancy

Ruth Anselm, Senior LMT, explains what prenatal massage is & why it helps. Read below to find out how we can help you have a smooth pregnancy.

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!

Whether you’re looking for a massage therapist in midtown or downtown New York, you’ll want to make sure you are seeing a massage therapist who has experience with pre and postnatal massage. One who can help set some of your concerns at ease. There are a tremendous number of things that newly pregnant women are told they “should” and “must” do or not do. These messages can be overwhelming 🙂 A great prenatal massage therapist makes sure that you feel listened to, comfortable, and that lines of communication are open.

From Finding Out to a New Family: What happens along the way?

The following is a loose guideline on what to expect and when you’ll likely experience it. As well as how to find massage therapy in midtown, downtown, and the greater New York area to help.

1st Trimester/Prenatal Massage: “It’s positive!” to “This is really happening!”

This is the first 12 to14 weeks where women tend to feel exhaustion, mild to severe nausea, hormonal fluctuations, headaches and constipation. During this time prenatal massage is helpful for treating headaches and for managing stress levels. However, if you have a high risk pregnancy, massage is not recommended during the first trimester. If nausea is severe you likely won’t be interested in massage or able to travel to it.

If you’re feeling well, though, this is a great time to start getting into a regular routine of self care. This includes prenatal massage therapy! Keeping yourself as relaxed as possible is very important throughout the entire pregnancy to create a happy home environment for the baby that they will want to stay and grow in.

2nd Trimester: Mama’s got a whole new body.

Somewhere between 13 and 27 weeks you will start to notice your belly growing. Physically, things start changing very quickly during this time. Many suggest this is the time you will feel your best. It is also when prenatal massage starts becoming more essential for maintaining maximum comfort.

You may have already started experiencing Round Ligament Pain. This is normal (it’s a sharper pain around the groin and front of the hip area). Unfortunately not much can be done for this except making minor adjustments on your own when standing up. It is, however, a foreshadowing of what many women begin to experience around weeks 20-30.

Your hips start to widen relatively fast to support your growing belly. A typical complaint may be a deep ache in the outer hips and/or low back and often feels constant! The muscles supporting this area tend to go into spasm in response to the expansion. They benefit greatly from detailed and specific massage to release them.

Leg cramps are another common issue. They can wake you up in the night suddenly or just be an ongoing tight area. There are some specific points around the ankles and feet that should be avoided. A trained prenatal massage therapist will know about them. Work in the hips and upper legs can help with blood flow to the lower leg. More gentle work can be done in the lower legs to help relieve cramping.

3rd Trimester: Please give up your seat to the elderly, disabled, and PREGNANT LADY!

This is 28 weeks up to the time you give birth. At this point your body is likely dying for a prenatal massage! Although you’re getting so close, the last 10-12 weeks can feel longer than the rest of the pregnancy combined. You have trouble with shoes and stairs… and SLEEP.

Sleep is vital and the most important thing you can give yourself is rest. Getting comfortable is what it is all about now. Having a date with yourself and your massage therapist may only bring temporary relief, but often leads to the best sleep you get all week later that evening! The strain on your body tends to be pretty substantial. Some women notice it just in their legs and hips. Others in their neck and jaw, any and all parts of the back, and many times the feet. You name it, we’ve heard and seen it in our prenatal massage clients.

You never know how your body will respond to pregnancy and it’s always unique to the individual. Working to create as much ease in the areas of discomfort can make more room for the baby to find a comfortable position. Anytime more room is made, that little child is going to find it and take it. If muscles are relatively relaxed it helps with efficiency in the body when moving with that extra weight. Later it helps with the labor!

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How To Find a Chiropractor or Acupuncturist During The Holidays

David Weintraub, LMT & Owner at Bodyworks DW, writes about how to find effective pain management when you are traveling away from NYC. Read below!

What do you do when your back goes out and you are away from home?!

If you are reading this, odds are you are in New York City. And quite possibly already a happy massage therapy client at our studio. We think our blogs are relevant and important info. But we’d be fooling ourselves if we thought that Google would show them much outside of our home turf, NYC. For many of you, you already know what to do when you back (or other area) goes out of whack. Book a massage with our team of talented therapists for back pain massage in the New York area! When you are out of NYC, we recommend working with a chiropractor or acupuncturist instead. And we’ll show you how to find a good chiropractor or acupuncturist! Travel is tough on our bodies. And holidays with family can often add even more stress into the picture. It’s not at all uncommon for injuries to crop up while away from home. There are a lot of possible causes: 

• Different mattresses and pillows than you are used to
• Long plane flights crammed into uncomfortable seats
• Eating foods outside your normal diet
• Being thrown into other people’s schedule
• Your uncle/aunt/mother/grandfather asking you repeatedly why you haven’t gotten married/had kids/gotten a promotion/found a partner/insert existential dread here…..

Counterintuitively, we don’t recommend getting a massage if you are away from NYC and in real pain. Before we show you how to find a chiropractor or acupuncturist instead, we need to tell you why!

Why we recommend chiropractic care or acupuncture instead of massage while out of New York

If you are just feeling sore and tired from a long flight, by all means go ahead and book a massage at a spa nearby. Most massage therapists around the country, and frankly the world, have enough training to provide a decent relaxing full body massage. However, if you are in real pain, you need to make sure you find someone who has the training and experience to help you. New York State massage therapists have much higher education requirements that most other states. New York requires a minimum of 1000 hours of training to complete school and get a license. Most other states only require between 500-700 hours. That extra 300-500 hours of training makes a real difference. Between being able to provide medical massage vs a spa massage. Of course, it’s totally possible that you will end up with someone great and experienced, but it can be a gamble.

Massage Therapy does not have national standards. So don’t count on other states having therapists at the level you are used to in New York!

There is no national standard for massage therapy (yet). There are minimum national requirements for chiropractors and acupuncturists. Both disciplines routinely deal with pain management. If you find someone with a decent number of 5 star reviews on Google, you’ll likely walk away with less pain. While there is still no way to guarantee you’ll get what you need the odds are higher. And if you follow our guide on how to find a chiropractor or acupuncturist, you’ll have an even greater chance of walking out pain free. In states with lower requirements for massage therapy, you’ll have to rely solely on recommendations and reviews. And on their having taking advanced training courses. These courses often use language that is hard to decipher. If you aren’t up on the latest terms (pediatric oncology massage, traditional kinesiology, etc….anyone?) it will be hard to tell what you are getting.

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Bodyworks DW Medical Massage Midtown is Moving!

 

Your favorite NYC medical massage therapists are moving to a new, expanded studio in midtown West 🙂

We’ve had a good run in our 1 room midtown east studio, meeting new clients, and providing our top quality medical massage therapy to those of you who live uptown. However, along with the ups of our midtown location, there have been some downs. Noisy neighbors. Less than great lighting in the waiting area and hallways. A long walk from the waiting area to our treatment room. And from what we’ve been hearing from folks, “too far East.”

It was time to expand and find a space with the same chill vibe as our home in Fidi. After a couple of months of searching around near our current space, we just didn’t see anything we liked. So we started looking at other neighborhoods. Turns out midtown west is rather underserved for high quality massage therapy.

We searched around and finally found the Arts Building at 336 West 37th Street. It’s a really great loft building, with a variety of fun tenants. They’ve got high ceilings and hardwood floors throughout, and nice old architectural details like exposed brick in the hallways. We liked them, and they liked us. So we signed on for a new space to call our medical massage midtown home in suite 540!

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