The Complete Idiot's Guide to Massage

Front Cover
Penguin, 1998 - 359 pages
In this fast-paced world, it seems everyone is overworked and overstressed. Massage is the simplest, most immediately beneficial approach to helping alleviate those troublesome spots in your body-whether one goes to a professional therapist, does it to another person, or relaxes tightened muscles him or herself. The authors provide idiot-proof techniques for alleviating such problems as back pain, hamstring cramps, headaches, and more. Readers gain insights into all of the different kinds of massage, from Swedish massage and shiatsu to reflexology and the latest craze, aromatherapy. Stressed-out folks learn how to: find massage aids (such as heating pads and oils); choose a massage therapist; massage someone else; do self-massage; do erotic massage; and even massage children and pets!

From inside the book

Contents

Can You Feel It?
1
Beyond Backrubs
13
Working from the Outside In
25
Learning to Live in Your BodyMind
34
Getting in Touch with Your BodyMind
37
Massage Keeps All Systems Go
51
The Body Made Easy
67
Power Points
83
Friction and Vibration
185
Increasing Range of Motion
195
Massage the Senses
209
Aromatherapy Is Scentsational
221
Spacial Pleasures
233
Massage for Your Life
245
Exploring the Past
261
Overcoming Your Fears
266

Putting Your Mind to It
95
Massage Basics
105
Getting a Massage from a Massage Therapist
119
Welcome to the World of Massage
127
More Kinds of Massage
141
Different Strokes for Different Folks
155
Petrissage
167
Compression
175
The Wide Wide World of Sports Massage
269
For Women Only
281
Massage for the Rest of Us
291
Massage for Pets
309
Personalized Massage Sessions
323
Suggested Reading
329
Copyright

Common terms and phrases

Bibliographic information