I’m fairly new to massage still and I have taken a pretty long break from massaging at all and will be getting back into it this week.
I have a client tomorrow and he has a good amount of muscle mass. I was wondering if anyone has different techniques they use on more muscular clients or if they do anything different. I find it hard to sometimes tell the difference between if someone has a spot with adhesions or if it’s just muscle lol. Please don’t judge, I’m very new.

Looking for opinions. I have been seeing a therapist 1-2 times a month for last 10 years. Her 40th bday is in couple weeks. I have never gotten her any gifts. Always just tip well but for her 40th I was thinking about sending her a gift basket. Would this be considered inappropriate?

I really need work done on my lower back and they seem like the best financial option around my area. Problem is I hear very mixed reviews between locations, which leads me to believe are they like the Applebee’s of the massage world.

Guys Ive Always enjoyed massage. And I'm looking for a new career however I don't know how I can afford the licensing training in schools at this point unless there's some other ways for it to be paid for. Like OJT or working for the training I don't know. I'm middle-aged Asian of small stature and sometimes I worry I might not be strong enough to give a really good massage. Anyone have any tips or pointers on how to get started on a small budget?

im not a massage therapist but if there are any massage therapists here who specialize on hEDS i would love the advice

Ok- shits getting weirder and weirder with this client but I love in SOCAL and am an independent MT and I’m struggling to survive basically. I can’t afford to lose this well paying client. This client is kind of a quiet shy type introvert and has never been inappropriate but this request makes me feel weird.

Im not the biggest fan of massages, not because they are bad, because i cannot remain comfortable.

2 things bother me after only a short time on the table. My knees and my throat/chin.

After a while it feels my Adam’s Apple is being pushed in so much that my throat just starts aching so I have to adjust constantly.

And my knees. (Specifically my right knee) after only 10 minutes I have to rotate my knee outward, then again inward and again outward because it starts really hurting and cramping up.

What are some remedies that I can try to make sure they don’t hurt?

Hi everyone,

I am reaching out to see if any other Licensed Massage Therapists working on the Soothe platform have noticed long-term patterns of missing or unpaid tips.

I audited my payout history over a multi-year period and discovered roughly $900+ in missing tips. When I brought specific missing payouts to support, I received standard responses claiming the clients had retracted the tips.

However, after verifying directly with long-term, loyal repeat clients whose tips were shown on the list of my appointments, but not paid and claimed as "retracted," they confirmed they never canceled or took back any tips. In my case, roughly 1/3 to 2/3 of tips from regular clients were consistently missing from my actual payouts!

Looking to Connect: Since older threads on this topic are archived, I wanted to open a new discussion:

1. Has anyone else audited their Soothe transfer receipts against their actual bank payouts and seen similar patterns?
2. How did support handle it if you brought it to their attention?

If you have experienced this or are currently tracking missing earnings on Soothe, please feel free to comment below or send me a direct message (DM) so we can share information and look into collective next steps.

Thanks in advance for your insights!

I've been going to a solo massage therapist for about 3 months now, averaging about 1 2-hour session every 10 days. She's already been giving me a discounted rate off of her already slightly below market rate for the past few sessions because, as she said "you're a VIP" (I tip her 25% to make up for that a bit). Today, in our conversation while she was walking around on my back, it came out that today is my birthday. At the end of the session, she said "happy birthday, I'm only charging you for one hour." Wow, just wow. It doesn't make up for it: her payment app only calculates tip amounts on the actual charge but I selected the maximum tip of 30%. I don't want to share her name or location, but I am incredibly grateful to have found such a wonderful therapist.

She did tell me today that she first learned massage from her Thai grandmother, and that she gave her first massage to her mother at age 7. So, she has an incredible amount of experience.

I’ve been an LMT for 2 years and want to continue my education and definitely need a refresher in body mechanics. I’ve been looking for some good classes in body mechanics, Thai, myofascial, all the things. The only problem is I’m located in the Intermountain West, and unfortunately almost all the classes I seem to want to take are on the east coast, which just isn’t a possible travel distance for me any time soon. I would love suggestions or any referrals for classes on my side of the states. In person is preferred. TIA!

had a great massage two weeks ago however he was too hard on my feet. I should’ve asked for less pressure, but I powered through it. Both heels in my foot ached a while now it’s just my right heel. it hurts mostly in the morning when I get out of bed as I walk on it, it gets less noticeable. next time I will definitely ask him to be softer on my feet.

I just started doing mobile in home massage. Does it ever happen to you guys where if you go over their hand or are massaging their hand and they seem to try to hold your hand ? Idk if it’s an accident or if he really did but it felt consistent. They also asked me before the massage if i wanted any wine. Also just generally wanting advice for in home in terms of staying safe ect

I've had a lot of bad massages from rmts.

I had my first thai massage last year and it was amazing. She is a rmt.

I saw another rmt earlier today in a private in home setting. I booked for a Thai massage. She gave me a therapeutic massage with hot stones. It was very meh. I made it clear I hold tension in my shoulders, neck and upper back. The massage helped but I can already tell that I won't feel it tomorrow. Im not in the typical discomfort I feel after a good massage.

I'm in the middle of a 13hr road trip and was really hoping for an experience similar to my first thai massage.

I will not be going back when I'm heading back up here.

I question if this person is really even the rmt she claims to be. She is posted online on SunLife but with one 5star review.

She asked about my benefits but I've used it up, so didn't bother with any reciept.

So, because some of our MTs are cutting guests' service time, management now requires all MTs at our spa, to tell the guests what time the clock says when we're starting our session, and what the time is when we're finishing (we have digital clocks in the room that the guests can clearly see).

Not only do I feel like this is an incredibly poor decision on Management's part to not hold certain people accountable for their unprofessionalism, but now we have to disrupt the relaxing mindset of our guests during our sessions by making them "time conscious".

Is that just me? Does anyone else agree or disagree with this decision? I would like to bring this up with management but I struggle sometimes finding the right words.

I wanted to take the time to write a proper review because this was my very first massage, and I think it might reassure other people who, like me, are a little hesitant about taking the plunge.

Before the massage started, I was pretty nervous. I had absolutely no idea what to expect. When you’ve never had a massage before, it’s easy to ask yourself a thousand questions: How is it going to go? Will I feel comfortable? Will I know what to do? Will I actually be able to relax?

And then there was another, much more personal concern.

I’m not particularly comfortable with my back. I have a fairly large scar on my upper back, and, to be completely honest, I was a little worried about being judged by the person who was going to massage me. I even jokingly thought that she might take one look at me and throw me straight out the door. 😅

Obviously, that couldn’t have been further from what happened.

From the very beginning, she managed to make me feel comfortable. She was gentle, attentive, and above all, incredibly respectful. She never once judged me for my appearance or my scar. She simply did her job with a great deal of kindness, while respecting my requests and my boundaries.

And I think that’s exactly what allowed me to let go.

At first, I was still a little tense, both mentally and physically. But gradually, my thoughts started to fade away. I realized I wasn’t thinking about what was going to happen anymore. I was simply enjoying the moment.

For a first massage, I really couldn’t have hoped for a better experience.

Beyond the technique and the massage itself, what I remember most is the feeling of safety and trust that she managed to create. And when you arrive with insecurities or apprehensions, that human aspect matters enormously.

I wanted to share my experience here, but above all, I wanted to thank the entire r/massage community. Your discussions, advice, and experiences gave me enough confidence to finally give this a try.

I arrived with a lot of apprehension and simply wanted to relax.

I left feeling much lighter.

And most importantly, with one certainty, this definitely won’t be my last massage.

Thank you to the whole community. ❤️

Hey all, I'm starting a massage school in Denver (on the final stages with DPOS, if all goes smoothly🤞 my school will be approved in September).

I'm hoping for your input on getting the word out to potential students, because since it's new, there's no reputation to fall back on.

I teach classes already through my private practice, so I do have people who can speak to the educational nature of my work, but I was hoping for your thoughts on what to share and where in order to get this first cohort going.

Info about the school:

- The first cohort is set to start Feb 27. 9 month program. 700 hrs. Hybrid style. Small class sizes - 6-14. Goal is 10 students for the first cohort.

- Very much geared toward LMTs who are trauma savvy body workers who understand how to work with complex pain populations (including having and using a strong referral network) and want a private practice right away.

- Along with solid foundation in touch therapy, my programs have a really heavy emphasis on relationship building, so strong ethics, a parts work framework, practitioner presence, and ton of really practical solo-practitioner business development.

- It is not accredited at this time. Takes a couple years for some accreditation and right now it is important just to get it started.

With that in mind, my thoughts as of now for marketing/enrollment are:

1) flyers at gyms and movement studios, coffee shops, counselor's offices.

2) Contacting therapists/counselors, other LMTs/ movement professionals for 1:1 talks and group meetups.

3) Host group meetups monthly to get practitioners together

4) Teach single day workshops - free? Low cost?

5) somehow involve client's feedback??? Social media???

I feel like I should be doing something else and I'm not actually sure what. This is a heavy lift already, though one I'm confident about, so I don't have tons of time/very little extra funds for marketing, and I think grass roots is best.

Sorry to ramble - hoping any of you have thoughts on good ways to get the word out, and specifically what would you need to see/read/hear from a brand new school to consider going to it?

i have tried to perform a massage with the gel that is made from seaweed extracts and water. but, i always find that the gel is just too cold. ive tried to have a heated room and ive tried to heat the gel, but once it hits the body, it drops in temp very fast and becomes too cold.
am i doing something wrong?

So my current job has a scholarship program and it was supposed to pay for almost all of my massage program, you can get up to $3,500 per year for four years. Well, it got denied because it's a certification and not a degree. I was told very confidently it was an automatic thing and I would get it by multiple people in my work, so I was relying off of that and didn't fill out FASFA. I already have a bachelors degree. I'm scared due to being late to FASFA and having a BA already I won't be able to attend school now. This is probably a long shot but if anyone knows of any associates, bachelors, master's programs that includes massage my work would pay for that. I've done some googling but they are all very expensive. I also had a really wonderful housing situation I am moving into in a few days!! I don't want to move for school. Idk what to do about this if I don't get financial aide. I can't think of another career I would want to do either, this was kind of the dream.

TL;DR Massage book is a shitty platform, what programs can I use to replace what it offers that run more smoothly / are actually worth the money

Fellow LMTs! What are we using instead of massage book? I just noticed they upped their prices but almost all of their “features” remain clunky 🥴 I’m even willing to pay for a website domain + emailing software separately but I’m worried about SOAP notes, forms, client organization, staying within HIPPA etc. I was already considering paying for a better site and linking it but now it just seems like I need better software altogether 😵‍💫 I’ve been trying to avoid paying separately for booking software + website + emails + forms + soap notes + etc. because it seems like it would be inconvenient to have a bunch of payments for one thing, but massage book really is just the bare minimum even with the 2nd tier solo practitioner level. Not to mention nothing seems to work right - the forms don’t auto send out, neither do reminder/ promo emails, the ‘massage book list’ of people able to see your business on the site and pick has only proved to get me contacted by creeps, the website is confusing for customers with 0 customization aside setting prices for services + uploading photos 🫠 I also have no interest in the ‘Google promote’ because the second I made a Google business page I was relentlessly spam called (I counted, it was about 50 calls a day for 4 days until I took my page down and registered on the do not call registry) Help, please!
TIA

Been scrolling around a bit through similar asks and wanted to throw my question out there.

A little backstory: About 2 months ago I was in an accident, have done PT, and got the ok to do a massage as a birthday present since regular birthday plans were now kinda out of the question. Issue is with mid/lower back and hip area but she did note my IT band and hamstrings were tight during my first visit.

First massage went well, I was sore afterwards but nothing too crazy. She had asked about pressure before hand and checked in throughout. About a month later (crazy schedules with all the PT and other appointments) I had my second session.

As she's working on my right side she makes a comment about how there are a lot of really stuck spots on that side. She continues to put pressure on some spots but back was not having it. She eventually stops and says she's going to leave it because it's not unsticking and she doesn't want to hurt me (though it felt like she already had a bit).

Moving on to hips/legs- I had a full on body reaction at one point where my head came off the table and my hand came up to rest on her arm. She didn't really let up and just said I was very tight in my hips/IT/hamstring/quads on both sides.

Fast forward to now, two days later where I have bruises on both legs (kinda long, maybe the length of my fingers) and where my leg and hip meet (more fingerprint sized). Can't really see my back but my right side has been very unhappy afterwards.

I didn't bruise like this from what I remember from the first session - at least not significantly. I don't know how much is potentially just my muscles and residual from the accident and how much may be her being heavy handed. I do bruise, I wouldn't say easily, but enough that I'm also somewhat hesitant.

Thoughts? Feelings? I don't have credits or any kind of obligation, just looking for relief and things that are going to benefit me and not potentially cause more harm.

Hi everyone, first ever time posting on reddit as I wanted your opinions on this picture...

Been struggling with a trapped nerve in my back/neck last week that made it difficult to get out of bed. Got recommended through family a physical therapist that might be able to help.

Had the massage today, at some points it was uncomfortable though by the end I could turn my neck 'normally' again and thought it was successful.

They used a 'blade' and said bruising was normal...I do bruise easily and sent them this same picture and they replied with it being 'normal just from the blade and blood flow settling at the top of the skin'.

What would everyone recommend moving forward? I see a lot of places say sports massage and deep tissue therapy bruising is normal and some say its not. Which is it?

Thanks everyone for your help!