How's the Pressure? Fine. (But Is It Really?)

One of the things I've learned over the years is that when you ask a massage client how the pressure is and they tell you it's fine, that doesn't necessarily mean you're giving them the pressure they want.

I've had clients tell me about massages where they wished the therapist would have worked deeper, but they didn't say anything. I've also heard from clients who received massages that were much too deep, and instead of asking the therapist to back off, they simply endured the session.

Neither of these clients got the massage they wanted. And there's a pretty good chance neither one scheduled another appointment with that therapist.

So how do you know if you're giving your clients the right amount of pressure, especially when they're telling you everything is fine?

This was something I had to figure out years ago when I was supervising a student massage clinic, and what I learned completely changed how I taught massage pressure.

What Our Clinic Clients Were Trying to Tell Us

When I was supervising the student clinic, part of my responsibility was making sure the students had enough massage appointments to complete their required clinic hours. That sounds simple enough, but we had a problem. People would come in for a massage, and then they wouldn't come back.

I was constantly trying to find people willing to come in for free massages just to fill the empty appointments. We had students who needed their hours, massage tables sitting empty, and not enough returning clients to keep the clinic schedule full.

I needed to figure out why.

I decided to start asking our clinic clients what we could do better. What would make them want to schedule another massage with one of our students?

The answer I kept getting was pressure.

They wanted the students to learn how to give better massage pressure.

Now, I found this interesting because I thought we were already teaching them how to do that. We were teaching the massage techniques, how to use their body weight, how to work into the tissue, and how to adjust the depth of their work. So what exactly were we missing?

When I started asking the students about it, they were just as confused as I was. They told me they were checking with their clients, asking whether the pressure was okay, and the clients were telling them it was fine.

And there was our problem.

We were asking a question that wasn't giving us the information we needed.

What Does "Fine" Actually Mean?

Think about what happens when you're giving a massage and you ask your client, "How's the pressure?"

They say, "It's fine."

What did you just learn?

Not much, really.

You don't know whether they're enjoying the pressure, whether they wish you would work deeper, or whether they're tolerating more pressure than they actually want.

And something else I noticed in the student clinic was that clients didn't necessarily want to correct the students. They knew they were learning, and they didn't want to hurt their feelings or make them feel like they weren't doing a good job.

So they would tell the student the pressure was fine, finish the massage, and then decide not to come back.

Meanwhile, the student thought everything had gone well because the client hadn't complained.

This is an important distinction for massage therapists to understand. Just because someone doesn't complain about their massage doesn't mean you've met their expectations.

If you want clients to return, you have to learn how to find out what they actually want, rather than assuming what you're doing is working.

Teaching Clients to Tell Us What They Want

I started thinking about the 1–10 pain scale we used when evaluating a client's pain. We could ask a client to give us a number for their pain, and that number helped us understand what they were experiencing.

Why couldn't we do something similar with massage pressure?

I started teaching the students to use a pressure scale, but instead of asking whether the pressure was good or fine, I wanted them to give the client a way to identify how much pressure they actually wanted.

Here's the question I developed:

"If someone were to come up and start rubbing your shoulders on a scale of 1–10, one being no pressure at all and 10 being too much, where would you like the pressure of the massage to be?"

Now we had something to work with.

If the client said they wanted a 7, the student had a number they could use during the massage. Instead of asking whether the pressure was okay, they could ask, "Is this the 7 you were looking for?"

If the client said no, it felt more like a 5, the student knew they needed to adjust.

What I liked about this approach was that it gave the client a way to direct the massage without feeling like they were criticizing the therapist. It also made the students pay attention to something they hadn't necessarily been thinking about before.

They were learning that the pressure they thought they were giving wasn't always the pressure the client was experiencing.

And that's a skill that takes time to develop.

I watched students who thought they were working deeply discover that their clients wanted considerably more pressure. I also watched students realize they were applying far more pressure than the client was comfortable receiving.

The scale gave both of them a way to communicate, and we started seeing a difference in how clients responded to their massages.

Our clinic went from struggling to fill appointments to having returning clients scheduled weeks in advance.

But there was something else I started noticing as we used the pressure scale, and that became an even bigger part of how I taught this concept.

What I Learned From the Numbers Clients Chose

As the students started using the scale, I noticed that most clients were asking for pressure somewhere around a 5, 6, or 7.

These clients were usually fairly easy to work with because we could adjust the massage a little deeper or a little lighter until we found what they wanted.

But I became particularly interested in the clients who were asking for numbers at either end of the scale.

Let's start with someone who asks for a 2 or 3.

In the clinic, I often found that these clients had some concern about receiving too much pressure. Sometimes they had never had a massage before and didn't know what to expect. Sometimes they had received a massage that hurt, and they didn't want to experience that again.

What I discovered was that some of these clients weren't necessarily asking for the pressure they would enjoy the most. They were asking for the pressure they thought would keep them from being hurt.

Now, that doesn't mean every client who asks for light pressure is afraid of massage. There are plenty of people who genuinely prefer lighter work, and that is what we should give them.

But I learned that when someone requested a particularly low number, it was worth having a little more conversation about what they wanted and what they had experienced in the past.

The same thing happened at the other end of the scale.

When a client asked for an 8, 9, or even a 10, I often found that they had been disappointed by previous massages because they couldn't get the therapist to work deeply enough.

They had decided that deeper pressure must be what they needed to get relief.

But here's what was interesting.

When we actually started working with these clients and let them experience different amounts of pressure, many discovered that they didn't really want a 9. They might have wanted a 6 or 7, but they wanted that pressure applied correctly.

There is a difference between applying more pressure and applying pressure skillfully.

And that's something I wanted my students to understand.

Helping Clients Find the Pressure They Actually Want

One of the things I started having the students do was experiment with different pressure levels during the massage.

If someone told us they wanted an 8, the student didn't necessarily need to start by applying the deepest pressure they could manage. They could begin working at a comfortable depth and ask the client to identify what number they were experiencing.

Maybe the client would say it felt like a 5.

The student could then adjust the pressure and ask again. As they worked through different levels, the client could tell them when they reached the depth they wanted.

Sometimes that was the number they had originally requested. Other times it wasn't.

The important part was that the client was discovering what pressure felt right to them, and the student was learning how to produce that pressure.

We also learned that the pressure someone wants isn't necessarily the same everywhere on the body.

A client might want a 7 across their shoulders and a 4 when you're working around their neck. They might enjoy deeper work on their legs but prefer something lighter across their back.

You can't assume that because someone asked for a particular number at the beginning of the massage, that number applies to everything you're going to do for the next hour.

That's why I teach massage therapists to use the pressure scale throughout the session, not just during the intake.

It gives the client the opportunity to make adjustments as you work, and it gives you the opportunity to learn how your pressure is being received.

And as the therapist, you still have to use your judgment about what is appropriate for the tissue and the client's condition. A requested number isn't permission to apply pressure that could cause harm.

The goal isn't to see how deeply you can work. The goal is to give the client the pressure that meets their expectations while providing safe, effective massage.

Why This Matters to Your Massage Business

I've taught the pressure scale to massage students and experienced massage therapists for years now, and I still think it's one of the simplest ways to improve communication at the massage table.

One of the things I tell therapists is that you can be very good at the massage you give and still not be giving the client the massage they want.

That's a difficult thing for some therapists to understand because we tend to evaluate our work based on what we know, the techniques we've learned, and what we believe will be helpful.

But your client is evaluating their massage based on an entirely different set of expectations.

They're thinking about how the massage feels, whether you worked on the areas they wanted, whether the pressure was what they expected, and whether they got what they came in for.

If those expectations aren't being met, it doesn't necessarily matter how skilled you believe your massage was.

The client may simply decide to find another therapist.

I want massage therapists to understand that you don't have to guess your way through thousands of massages to develop better pressure skills. You can start learning from your clients right now by changing how you ask about pressure and then paying attention to what they tell you.

When a client says the pressure is fine, find out what fine means.

Give them a number they can use. Let them tell you whether you're meeting their expectations, and be willing to adjust what you're doing.

It's a fairly simple change, but it can make a tremendous difference in the massage experience you provide.

And if you're trying to build repeat clientele, that's where I would start. Before you spend more time and money trying to get new clients through your door, make sure you're doing everything you can to meet the expectations of the clients who are already on your table.

Why Clients Say They Loved Their Massage but Don't Come Back

I talk about this same problem in my Massage. Business. Success. podcast episode, That Was a Great Massage. I'll Call You. , where I explain why clients who tell us they enjoyed their massage don't always come back, and how understanding their expectations can make a difference.

It's a conversation about what happens when clients tell us they enjoyed their massage but don't reschedule, and why understanding their expectations is such an important part of building a successful massage practice.

Learn More About Building Repeat Clientele

The pressure scale is one of the things I teach in Massage Your Market, my 6 CE-hour course on understanding client expectations and developing repeat clientele.

In this course, I teach my Six Questions approach to learning what clients want from their massage, how to use that information to design a session that meets their expectations, and how to make the adjustments that encourage clients to return.

Massage Your Market is also the Repeat Clientele component of The Massage Business Method, where I teach massage therapists how to build their businesses around Referrals, Repeat Clientele, and Revenue.

Explore Massage Your Market 

 By Amy Bradley Radford, BCTMB

This article revisits concepts I originally shared in my November 28, 2023, MASSAGE Magazine column, “Master the Art of Perfect Massage Pressure.”