Massage
What is a Massage?
Massage is the practice of soft tissue manipulation with
physical, functional, and in some cases psychological purposes
and goals.The word comes from the French massage "friction of
kneading," or from Arabic massa meaning "to touch, feel or
handle" or from Latin massa meaning "mass, dough".
An older etymology may even have been the
Hebrew me-sakj "to anoint with oil". In distinction the ancient
Greek word for massage was anatripsis, and the Latin was
frictio.
Massage involves acting on and manipulating the body with
pressure – structured, unstructured, stationary, or moving –
tension, motion, or vibration, done manually or with mechanical
aids.
Target tissues may include muscles, tendons, ligaments,
skin, joints, or other connective tissue, as well as lymphatic
vessels, or organs of the gastrointestinal system. Massage can
be applied with the hands, fingers, elbows, forearm, and
feet.
There are over eighty different recognized massage
modalities.
The most cited reasons for introducing massage as therapy
have been client demand and perceived clinical
effectiveness.
In professional settings massage involves the client being
treated while lying on a massage table, sitting in a massage
chair, or lying on a mat on the floor.
The massage subject may be fully or partly unclothed. Parts
of the body may be covered with towels or sheets.
From Wikipedia, the free
encyclopedia
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