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.

Continue reading

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!

Continue reading

Working Below the Knee May Help Your Neck Pain

Rachel Simhon

Rachel Simhon, LMT and featured therapist of the month tells us why working below the knee can relieve neck pain. Don’t believe it? Take a look yourself!

Why did you get into massage therapy?

My background as a yoga and Pilates instructor specializing in pain management and injury rehabilitation inspired me to pursue a career in massage therapy. I’ve always been a very hands-on movement instructor. Manual therapy felt like a natural extension of the sort of work I was already doing. I also very much experience the world around me through touch! It made sense to take a step further, seeking formal training in a modality where I could focus on that. Keep reading to learn about the connection between your neck pain and everything below the knee!

Most common pain your clients experience?

The most common pain issue clients report to me is neck pain & shoulder pain. However when clients are on the table, everywhere below the knee frequently seems to be the most aggravated. This isn’t a coincidence. I often find a relationship between forward head carriage and tension in the calf muscles. I always do a thorough movement assessment at the beginning of an appointment. This helps me to see how the client is and isn’t able to move.

Continue reading