This course is focused on you as the therapist learning the hands free massage techniques combined with good posture to make your massage effortless. It also covers basic principles that will enable you to work safely without using hands, thereby looking after your own body and working with sensitivity. It has been designed to help you to save your fingers, thumbs and wrists (the most common areas of strain for practitioners) while applying firm pressure. This course focuses on forearm and elbow techniques which can be blended into a ‘normal’ oil massage. We will work with the client on the usual height massage table, as well as with the client either seated in an ordinary chair or a portable massage chair.

The techniques can be used as a stand-alone treatment or combined into your existing routine. From oil effleurage to working deeper into the clients trigger points the hands free techniques using forearms, upper arms and elbows taught are simple to learn but effective to use.

Hands-free massage can help relax or rejuvenate, release tense muscles, increase blood circulation and improve detoxification. Using the soft, inner part of the forearms enables you to spread the pressure over a much wider area than is possible with traditional massage techniques.  You can work muscle fibres smoothly and easily, helping to ease away any tension, adhesions and knots. It delivers a treatment that will make your clients feel that their tensions have been ‘ironed’. Their muscles will feel less tense and muscular dysfunction to deliver a therapeutic, deep but relaxing massage.

The aim is to expand your repertoire and freshen your approach, to help you be more effective when applying pressure while saving your hands, thereby helping you to maintain your career.

Course Details

The course is mainly practical and includes:

• Conditions of the hands and arms such as Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI), causes and prevention
• Hand, arm and wrist warm up exercises and self-protection exercises
• Introduction to concept of hands free massage
• Benefits and effects of the treatment
• A range of forearm and elbow techniques that can substitute for and extend ‘classic’ massage techniques for varied pressures
• How and where to best use them
• Learn how to feel with these massage ‘tools’
• Discover how to use them skilfully and sensitively, including ways of moderating the pressure that you are applying
• Learn to adapt them to different client builds, tensions and responses
• Understand how to blend them effortlessly into your preferred massage routine
• Learn how to monitor and adapt to the client’s responses
• How to support this with good body use, rather than working too hard with your arms and shoulders

You will learn to effectively and confidently use the forearms and elbow to work on clients at a deeper muscular level using the:

• forearm – for powerful stretches and mobilisations.
• inner forearm – for applying widespread general pressure and for firm sweeping strokes, especially on the back and legs, ranging from medium to firm pressure.
• ulna forearm and the bony areas around the elbow for applying focused pressure
• precision elbow tools – for very specific work on ‘knots’/points of tension and pressure point techniques
• whole forearm for mobilising parts of the body and for applying stretches
• body weight and stretches to maintain or add pressure
• non-massaging hand for support, precision and palpation.

Please Note: These are strong, powerful tools. You can deliver harm and bruising pressure to clients if applied without care. Therefore, using them skilfully and learning how to adapt each technique to a range of builds, tolerances and reactions is a core part of our training.

Who Can Attend?

You must be a qualified Massage therapist, Aromatherapist or Manual therapist (Level 3 or above) to attend this course.

This course is especially useful for those therapists whose hands are not as agile as they once were or who have developed strain from over-use and for busy therapists looking to prevent injury and offer a wider range of techniques.

Recognition by Professional Associations

Widely accepted by most Professional Bodies. If you are not already registered with a Professional Body and would like to do so here are some useful links – ICGT, CtHA, FHT.

For stand alone insurance Westminster

More Information

The workshop will be largely practical in content and as a result, you will need appropriate clinic workwear for the duration of the course. This is very much a practical day. As a result, we have sufficient time to practice and perform the techniques under the guidance of the tutor. During the course you will partner up with another therapist and will get the chance to perform the techniques taught as well as being the recipient. This is because understanding what the technique should feel like is an invaluable tool for you as a therapist.

Duration:  1 day

Course fees include the following:

• All class tuition
• A comprehensive course manual
• An MSCM Certificate of Attendance for your professional portfolio
• 5 cpd points
• Tea and Coffee during the day

You may find the following workshops beneficial:

• Gua Sha Body Massage
• Gua Sha Facial Massage

Tutor: Anita Snowball – see our MSCM Tutor Page

To book a place on any of our courses please remember to create an account first (if you haven’t already got one.)

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If you already have an account please remember to log-in first

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If the course you wish to attend is full please send us an email at [email protected]. and we will be pleased to add you to the waiting list in case we have any dropouts.

If you are unable to attend the date below and are keen to do the course please let us know on [email protected]. If we have enough interest for another date we will be happy to schedule one in.