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Well, welcome my friends to the Massage Business Success podcast. Today we have a guest with us. Her name is Lorianne Green. Lorianne is a former licensed massage therapist educator and she is an author of Save Your Hands, a book I recommend for every single one of you out there to save your hands in this career. The full title of this book is Save Your Hands, The Complete Guide to Injury Prevention and Ergonomics for Manual Therapists.
With more than three decades of clinical experience, Lorianne combines lived insight with rigorous ergonomic principles to help therapists protect their bodies, reduce injury risk, and sustainably extend their careers. She has spoken and published widely in the massage and bodywork professions, led workshops, and consulted with clinics, spas, and schools. And her work bridges the gap between theory and practice. She offers
clear evidence-informed strategies that therapists can immediately apply. So we're excited to explore with her, her evolution of Save Your Hands book, and she's going to give us lots of insights into ergonomics and how practitioners can safeguard their bodies. So welcome to the podcast, Lorianne.
Thank you, Amy. It's a great pleasure to be with you today.
I'm really excited for this conversation that we get to have. So when I go to invite someone onto my podcast or when someone has requested to be on my podcast, I sit down and have a conversation with them before we dive into any of the information that I offer my audience. And I could not stop talking with Lorianne. We had the most delightful conversation. And I think it was such a great conversation because
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she is very well versed on the topic that she is offering you. And I had so many questions for her about her material and her study and her work. And so I think she has a lot of great insight for you, the listener. You know, one of the things that I found interesting when Lorianne reached out to me is I actually own a first edition of Save Your Hands. And I actually purchased that book on my own.
probably my second year of practice, would have been mid nineties. Yeah. Mid nineties. would have been 95 because I became a practitioner in 93. So, and I was really impressed with what she was offering. I felt like you had bridged a gap. There was somebody having a conversation with me about some of the things I was struggling with as, a massage therapist already. And the thing that was impressed upon me was
can't say mid because I'm 95.
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being very cognizant of your behavior at the table, which we're gonna talk about a little bit more today. But as I read her story, I really identified with what she had gone through to get her to the place where she wrote this particular manual. Laurieann, tell us about your story of how you got to this place where you wrote this book for the massage therapy industry.
Sure. I went to Seattle Massage School. It's a very good massage school. I was living in Seattle at the time. It's a year program and it's quite heavy on the academics. I was really looking forward. I had really done massage myself just instinctively for almost my whole life. I was just always massaging somebody. So I was really looking forward to a career in massage.
And I think at about the seventh or eighth month of the year program, they offered us externships. So the opportunity to go and work in a professional setting. And I chose a physical therapy clinic. And this was in addition to the work I was doing with school. Because of course, when we go to school, we are supposed to be doing massage exchanges.
with our fellow classmates. So I was doing two or three exchanges a week by that time. I started doing this externship. Now I am a type AAA personality, so I'm very much a perfectionist. And so of course I wanted to do the best job I could possibly do, especially because it was in a professional setting. The problem is though that I went from
doing two or three exchanges to a very pressured situation where, you know, I was expected to give a good massage and to do what the physical therapist asked me to do. And suddenly I went from doing two to three a week to doing seven to 10 massages a week and under a lot more pressure. And the pressure is an important point.
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I started noticing after a couple of weeks, I think the whole thing was a month. But I think in the second week, I started noticing that the ulnar side of my wrists on both hands was starting to hurt when I massaged. And I thought to myself, well, this doesn't feel good, but I guess it's normal. And so I went to my teacher.
And remember this was at a time when nobody was talking about injury. Nobody had awareness of injury and the massage field and nobody talked about it. So I said to her, well, I'm starting to have these pains in my wrist. And she said, don't worry about it. It'll get better. It's normal when you're first starting out to have some discomfort. So I took her word for it and I kept.
massaging and it got worse. By the time I got back to just going to school, I was in pain all the time. I had to make some modifications to my schedule. I asked to do fewer exchanges because every time I did a massage, it hurt. I managed to graduate, managed to get through my state boards. So I did become licensed.
I had started seeing doctor about this. I was in so much pain all the, every time I gave a massage that the doctor told me, you need to stop because you need to let it heal.
You just graduated. So excited.
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Exactly. So exactly. I just got past my boards. We had to do a final paper and I did a paper on musicians' injuries because that's what I wanted to concentrate on because I had been a professional musician earlier in my life. I did this paper and submitted it to a massage therapy journal and they published it and put me on the cover with some members of the Seattle Symphony because I was
working with the Seattle Symphony before I started school. So here I was, you know, on the cover of Massage Therapy Journal, but I couldn't be a massage therapist. It was very, very frustrating. It was hard to do anything with my hands. And it took a lot of physical therapy and other kinds of treatments. There was less knowledge at the time about how to treat these injuries, these gradual onset injuries.
And so I had to stop doing massage completely and I was in pain for three years. After all of the physical therapy and not doing massage, I finally got out of pain in three years. But by that time, it was kind of too late to go backwards.
Well, I don't know, I don't know how you would have convinced yourself at that time when you finally get out of pain to return to the thing that puts you at two. Yes. And so I would imagine at this point you were probably thinking not just of yourself, but of your classmates and other people that you ran into. And, and if you're like me, especially even at the table, when I get one person with one injury, I get six people with the same injury. It's like all of a sudden they show up.
Exactly.
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So I would imagine at that time you found a crowd of people who had a similar problem that you had.
Well, I can tell you that my class at school was 30 people. And there were three of us who graduated and were so injured that we couldn't practice. So that's 10%, which is a very large portion of the graduating class of 1993. And what I did in response to all this besides trying to get better, what a lot of people do, you you look on the internet and although
There wasn't much on the internet at that time, but I looked in bookstores and I asked people and there was no literature on the subject of what happens if you're a massage therapist and you are in pain. Because I had been doing research on what they called repetitive stress injuries at that time, I had done that research for my paper.
on musicians' injuries because I knew from having been a musician that musicians get injured because of a lot of the same reasons that massage therapists do, repetitive motions, using too much force, being too tense, not having the right body mechanics. It's a lot of the same things. In that subject, there was a fair amount of literature already. There was even a book
on the subject. I took that information and I created a workshop. I wanted to do something with the degree that I just got. So I started doing save your hands workshops. And there was a lot of interest in these workshops. I ended up doing them all over the country and in Canada. So I was flying all over the place and people really getting a lot out of it.
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lot of a lot of state associations, provincial associations in Canada. So I did that while I was treating my injury. You know, I did it so much. I mean, it was hundreds of therapists. And of course I learned a lot from them, from their experiences. So I had anecdotal...
evidence and information, I realized or somebody suggested to me, why don't you write a book? You you're doing this, you know, all day workshop. Why don't you write a book? And I thought to myself, well, why don't I write a book? And the book came out and frankly, it sold like hotcakes. We sold 15,000 books in the first six months.
So for a small book on a subject that didn't even exist, mean, that's a lot of books.
That's because there was a lot of therapists that were looking for the same answer that you were looking for.
He said there were a lot of therapists who were getting injured.
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injured. I know I bought the book and I had shinsplints in my arm. That's why I bought your book is I had, was a deep tissue therapist and two years into practicing deep tissue, I literally was diagnosed with shin splints, arm splints. I didn't know you could get them either, but it's the same concept. And so I went, actually purchased, yep, looking for an answer to provide longevity for my career.
Right.
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I didn't know you could have
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pro-tary.
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Good, and I hope that it was helpful to you.
Here we are 32 years later. Good job, Lorianne.
Good, I'm glad. So yeah, so that's how I became sort of known in the massage therapy world. At first, frankly, there was a lot of resistance, especially from massage schools, because of course, massage schools don't want somebody telling massage therapists, well, there is a possibility you're going to get injured by doing this.
inevitability sometimes. Yeah, they don't want to shoot themselves in their own foot by you and then, know, hey, you might get injured or you have 50 % chance again. Now can see exactly where they were coming from.
Yeah. But it got to the point where there had been so many books sold that it's like the cat was out of the bag. then the schools realized that they needed to address this more than they were doing. So then they started buying the book and making it required reading for the people who came in. And of course,
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spoke with a lot of schools and said to them, listen, you know, it can only improve your standing as a massage school that you are protecting the people who come to take classes with you because, you know, it can be a competitive advantage actually. It's not a disadvantage. It shows that you care. It's a reality that people get injured and that you care that you don't want people to
get out of school and not be able to practice like me. you know, I wasted, well, not wasted as it turned out, but, you know, it was expensive going to massage school. With my encouragement, they turned it into an advantage rather than a disadvantage. And so the first edition and the second edition were used as required reading at hundreds of massage schools all across the world.
became kind of a staple for massage books. So that is my long drawn out origin story. I apologize.
There's no reason to apologize. Everybody has a story. It's how you got to where you are. And I have to say one thing, your training wasn't a waste. It might have felt like it at the time.
Yeah, I don't think of it as a waste at the time when I couldn't practice. thought, jeez.
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I just did all this, see how I can do it. No, but it actually led you to be exactly where you need to be and you offered it to our industry. So you have a third edition of this book coming out, which is one of the reasons why you requested to be on my podcast was to really inform massage therapists that there is a new edition. can you tell me, along with everything that you have in those other two publishings,
Yeah.
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What is new and different that's in this third edition that just came out in October, I believe?
It did, yes. Yes, I am trying to get the word out. And one of the reasons I'm trying to get the word out is that the second edition is now out of print. What's new in the third edition, first of all, I should say that the second edition was very, very different than the first edition. I teamed up with Rick Goggins, who is a certified
professional ergonomist, but he's also a licensed massage practitioner. So he had a unique view of all of this. And so that's when we added, the first book was Save Your Hands, Injury Prevention for Massage Therapists. So by adding ergonomics and encouragement from a lot of people in the medical community, that this is a book that has information that can be applied to
occupational therapists, physical therapists, and doctors of chiropractic, and doctors of osteopathy, and really anybody who does any kind of manual treatment that we should make it instead of for massage therapists, make it for manual therapists. So certainly it has a very big emphasis on massage.
but it is information that can be used by these other professionals. So we wanted to expand the reach of the book. And then I also had a doctor of physical therapy who created a physical conditioning program, particularly for manual therapists. And so all of that remains in the book, but I brought it up to date.
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based on more recent studies that have been done and more recent thinking about musculoskeletal disorders, which is what we now call it. We no longer talk about repetitive stress injuries because repetition is not always the cause of injury. It's one of the risk factors, but it's not always the cause.
That's a conversation I've had in my advanced pain management classes of if it was a repetitive motion syndrome, we would all have it. So there has to be other factors that create it for that person. Otherwise, everybody would have it based on the fact that we've repeated it. So yes, I agree with you. I just had to plug that little bit in. yeah.
I'm glad you did, because you're right. That was Emil Pascarelli. He wrote the first book on this subject of musculoskeletal disorders, and he coined the term repetitive stress injuries. But yes, we no longer use that term. It's musculoskeletal disorders, and there's all kinds of them. And repetitive motion is just one of many risk factors for injury.
So in the third edition, some of the things that I've added, first of all, I wanted to make it even easier to read and even more accessible. So I just went through and cleaned it up just so to make it as accessible as possible. Then I also wanted to add in more about awareness, which is something you mentioned to me.
There's kind of a feeling that once you close the door to your treatment room, you leave yourself behind and everything is concentrated on the client. And that's when you are really at risk for injury. There is a way to stay aware of your own body and your own feelings as you are massaging the person.
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It's also a more emotionally healthy approach because we should never give everything we have and empty ourselves to anyone in any relationship. We always have to be taking care of ourselves at the same time that we're in a relationship. And for that hour or hour and a half while you're doing a massage, you're in a relationship with the client. So you need to
retain awareness and take care of yourself while you are working with the client. Part of that involves taking mini breaks. And this comes from what studies have found about exercise. It used to be they'd say, well, you have to do, you know, a half hour of aerobic exercise, you three times a week. And now they say instead of doing a half an hour all at
Once you can take 10 minutes in the morning and 10 minutes in the afternoon and 10 minutes in the evening and it accomplishes the same thing. You can break up your effort and there is even an advantage in doing that because it gives the body some time to recuperate in between. There are lots of ways to take mini breaks.
during your massage. I know we were all taught that you have to have your hands on the client at every moment. I think the profession is getting away from that finally. I think it's very, very hard to do. And I think the client sometimes needs a little break. You know, they don't...
Even for myself, I teach or as I was working at the table years as I've done this, learned how to conserve my energy at the table because it became very, very important. The more years you put in to this career that you start to learn how to conserve. And some of those things were to sit down when I was told not to sit down. Some of those things were to, and this is something I teach on a deep tissue level, it's not an hour.
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of deep tissue, it's specific places and for specific reasons. It's changing, know, what you're bringing to awareness on all levels is literally how we think and how that transfers into how it impacts our muscles and our bones and because our body is our tool at the table and how you actually take better care of that tool in little ways that compound over time, which is the same reason you get injured.
little ways that you don't pay attention that compound over time. So it's, it's stopping that runaway train and turning it around and going in the opposite direction, but awareness. And this is where I've been impressed with everything that you and I've talked about. And what I read in your first book was the awareness piece of this. And so I'd love to hop to some of this awareness because I think that is the biggest takeaway that you're going to offer in this new book, this new edition.
but even to the listeners right now is what is the awareness that you have. And you've just mentioned one taking mini breaks. I'm going to add to it and say, I've met a lot of therapists that want to just get their day out of the way and they book four massages and never take a break. Well, while you might have more time at the end of the day, you haven't rested in between sessions and giving yourself nourishment, water breaks.
That is a whole nother aspect as well. Or, you know, just do two massages and go do something else for a couple hours and come back and do two more. There are those options as well. Now granted, self-employed, yes, employed for somebody a little different, that's another statement. But you can actually start looking at what's impacting you, how you feel about those things.
for a minute.
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That's what we're gonna, that's what I think we should talk about next is what, what are some of the, and you get, you get heavy into the emotional component, the emotional side of this. There are thoughts that go through our brain when we're at that table. So we should listen to that we don't. So what are some of the mindfulness things? What are some of the strategies? What are some of the, the injury prevention tools and techniques you're teaching people?
Yes.
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Yes.
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As you say, awareness is very important. it actually, the people who manage to have careers for 32 years like you have, those are the people who, they're doing a number of different things. But one of the things that they do is they retain their awareness of their own body and their emotions at the same time that they're working.
So it is a big part of longevity. So yeah, you do need to put aside this idea. You always have to be, you know, touching the client. You have to be standing all the time. You know, you need to listen to your body. A part of ergonomics is alternating sitting and standing because you're coming at the work in a different way. you know, each has its pros and cons.
So if you mix it up, you don't get only, you know, if you're only standing, you're going to start getting some of the cons. If you're only sitting, you're going to not be able to use the same body mechanics for every part of the body. So, you you take the best of each of them by dividing it up. So,
One of my favorite things that my clients never saw, maybe they felt it or maybe they heard it is here I am working on their feet, but I've got my leg up on the table and I'm stretching out my hamstring. Oh, good for I'm twisting my back and I'm just moving so that I don't feel so rigid and stuck in one position.
but it's almost when I was taking a break, the feet are easy or we were spending a little time here, but I've got my leg up on the table and I'm stretching their face down, they can't see. But that's some of the things that I learned as I went through of taking care of my body during that session.
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Exactly. And it also shows a flexibility. I don't mean that you're here because
I'm sure if it's that flexible, but I understand what you're
An emotional flexibility that you would allow yourself to do that. You felt you needed to stretch and so, gosh darn it, I'm gonna stretch.
It felt better for me. I was energized. It was a mini break.
Yes, exactly. So there are many ways of, like you're saying, of taking mini breaks. Sometimes you can just take three deep cleansing breaths. You can even do it with your client if you'd like, because breathing, and that's a whole new section that I have in the book, breathing and concentrating on your breath.
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which is part of mindfulness-based stress reduction. It's good for you and it's good for your client. The thing that it does is people tend to get tense as they massage. Now that's partially an emotional thing. It's partially people like me who are perfectionists and are approach massage with tension because they are nervous about doing a good job.
It's partially if you're working for an employer, feeling pressure from your employer. That's a whole other subject.
to do a good job to get the rebook to get the money. Yeah. Yeah. It's that whole other expectation.
And yeah, and feeling like, gosh, if I take a, you know, if I stretch my leg out, what's the client going to think? You know, it's people who worry, people who are naturally a bit stressed out or are stressed out because of their work environment. And they feel that they can't take that moment. But, you know, if you can get the client involved and get the client breathing, the client can also start feeling tense for their own reasons.
even though you're massaging them, the tension might creep back in. So that's the way to do that. But it does take a lot of awareness to realize, okay, so keep moving, take your little breaks, whatever you find effective to dispel that tension. But really tension is the enemy of the massage therapist. and really awareness of your breath is a really
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good sort of entrance point to awareness. once you start becoming aware of, if you make yourself become aware of your breath, you become aware of everything else. Awareness of the breath is going to get you back into your body. It's going to get you grounded and centered and realizing, this is what I'm feeling.
So...
to I have to jump in right here because sure things one of the things that happened in my career in the beginning along with my shins plants in my arms was I noticed because I did have a routine and the routine changed based on the person and everybody has a routine but not not being stuck in it I write completely but but there was this one particular move that I would do on the lower back where I would
reach across and pull, you know, a drag stroke. Yes. So we're back. Well, my right arm would pull straight and my left arm would twist when I would do it. So my right arm was straight. My left arm would twist my right arm or straight. And at the end of the day, I would notice that that left elbow was sore. And two or three months into this, I've got some golfers tennis type elbow stuff going on.
All their kids in apathy.
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And all it was, was because I wasn't vigilant at making sure my body mechanics created that one little stroke change of don't twist it. It was very natural. My body wanted to do that. It was probably the way I was standing that made it more natural. But I was trying to be fluid and make this massage feel great. And there's this little twist. And that is what you are talking about. But the hardest part for me,
was changing my behavior once I acknowledged what was going on because it was easier to repeat it than to force myself to find a better position to create the change that better matched my body. It was a struggle inside my brain and I'm not going to say we're lazy. I'm not, but I am going to say that we fight ourselves. We fight ourselves on what we have created as a habit.
No, I don't think it's laziness.
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and undoing those habits and creating new habits, that right there is sometimes the hardest mental piece, aside from everything else that we talk about and we learn, it's the fight we do in ourself because I've got it down, I don't want to change. I learned this in school, I don't want to improve. I graduated, so what I'm doing is fine. Well, not necessarily fine. And I have run into that in my own body and had to
take a step back and take a breath and go, but you have to do this. You have to create the change or you're just gonna be in pain. so learning to adapt and create the changes and teaching myself to do that, that was huge.
absolutely. I do talk about in the book that there are any number of ways of addressing any one part of the body. There is not only, you know, that one thing that you think everybody loves that, that you feel comfortable with that can address, for instance, the low back as you were describing it. Yes, you may have been, perhaps you didn't have a
stance that allowed you to have a foot behind you and put your whole body into it so that it was the body that was the larger muscles of your legs and your back that were creating that movement. And the arms can actually stay still and get into the muscle and then pull back with your entire body. Now that would be better.
body mechanics. But another thing to do is just to find a different way to treat that part of the body.
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And I like that right there, because one of the things that I noticed that ties into this as well as some of those techniques I learned in school were from larger men with more muscle structure who could manage a load differently than my body could. So I was repeating what they were, but it actually injured me. This little five foot one, petite little girl, I couldn't do the same thing. And so acknowledging that,
coming up with a solution, changing my behavior, changing my routine, paying attention to what bothered me, altering it again. Those were all things that happened for longevity. And I find a lot of poor hand posture when I'm instructing because they either weren't trained or they've gone lax on their behavior or they just don't want to alter it because it's too much work in their own mind.
I think from that standpoint, that is one of the things that I gained from your first book. I can't even imagine what's in the third book, but just to create the awareness on it on a different level. And for those listening to be open to shifting and changing and understanding that again, these small changes create longevity in ways that you had no idea. Yes. No idea.
Yes.
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And that is what people were not talking about when you became injured.
Absolutely. Yes. So the importance of maintaining your awareness of yourself while you are treating the person instead of sort of forgetting yourself and just concentrating on the work, that will, I'm not going to say it will get you injured, but it is. It's not helpful. Let's put it that way.
not end well.
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No, and it adds to so many.
It's so much like when I got injured, I had no awareness of my body while I was working. I was just concentrating on the person and the work and I was, I don't even know where I was. So it isn't just, you know, for preventing injury, which I mean, obviously that's my subject. So that's what I concentrate on, but it's important to stay present and to be a real person.
you know, with your client. This is one of the reasons that I created a new appendix for the third edition on having a morning ritual that gets you into your body and your mind and gets you grounded and that you can carry into your work. and I think it's important in the morning because
makes it to make some time for that because often, you know, you're laid and you're grabbing something to eat and coffee and you're running out the door and you arrive and you're not, you're not present. You're just frazzled. That's not the same as being present. So if you can start your day out with some mindfulness based stress reduction, which is a kind of meditation, it's just that it's,
meant to reduce stress, not to help you reach Nirvana. So it gets you into your own awareness and it's relaxing at the same time. So you start out your day relaxed. It's going to... throughout your day, you have more energy, et cetera. So then, and there are a couple of other steps. It's kind of a little ritual.
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You will have more.
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doesn't take much time, it could take 10, 15 minutes, but it starts you off in that awareness of your body and your mind and shows you what that feels like. And then you can recreate it during the day. Yes, I do talk much more about emotional things, the worries people have, the, you know, not getting stuck.
By the way, I do want to mention because I often am quoted as saying that body mechanics is not injury prevention. Of course you need to have good body mechanics. But the reason we don't call it save your hands body mechanics for manual therapists is that injury prevention, staying healthy on the job, body mechanics is one part of that. It's an important part, but
It only takes you so far. There are so many other risk factors.
Can you give us three examples of what are the other areas that fit into this as well? Cause we've, we've kind of danced around them, but we actually like named them.
You need to take care of your physical and emotional health. So you need to have good nutrition. You need to get enough sleep. If you're having problems with tension, you need to address it. Again, that's part of awareness. You need to set up your, now this is pure ergonomics. You need to set up your treatment space to allow you to use good.
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body mechanics. you now, again, when you work for somebody else, this can be difficult. You need to have three feet of space around every part of the table. That allows you to take that step back so that you can, you know, move with your entire body and that the movement is coming from the larger muscles and, you know, large equals strong.
You need to, you know, not have the materials you use a lot to be within easy reach. If you're leaning forward more than 20 degrees, you're putting your low back in a position where it can become injured. Lifting. You have to be careful about lifting. If you lift a head, a head is like a bowling ball.
It weighs 10 to 13 pounds depending on the person. And if you do techniques where you're flexing your hands, part of body mechanics is keeping your wrists as straight as possible. That's probably one of the most important things to remember with body mechanics is keep your wrists straight. just again, awareness, be aware.
that body parts are heavy. Somebody's thigh can weigh 20 or 30 pounds if it's a big man. If you're just thinking of it, well, I just have to lift this guy's leg and I can't ask him to help, which is, again, it's an old idea that you can never ask the patient, you have to do everything. That's really not true. We have photos of ways that you can, you know,
get the leg into position without actually picking it up. But lifting is a risk factor for injury.
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I tell my clients, now pick your leg up for me. I let them. And that came later because you know what? There's some tree trunks out there. There really are some tree trunks out there. What are a couple more areas that people could think about that maybe they don't think about? Just some examples of some of the things that you teach them because we've talked about ergonomics, we've talked about awareness, we've talked about breath, we've talked about tension and stress. But what are just one or two more areas
that maybe they haven't thought about that your book would offer some insight to where it could make a huge difference.
think people don't think about positioning the client enough. I think they are afraid, just like you were saying, now you ask the person to lift their leg. think they basically feel like they have to do half the massage supine and half the massage prone, and they're not always using the most adaptive techniques. For example, there are
people who will put their hands under somebody's torso, their entire.
I was actually going through my brain. I'm like, yeah, one time they taught me to do that stroke and it killed my
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I learned that in school.
That's so funny, it was going through my mind.
You push up with your hands, again, you're out of, you you're not in an ergonomically correct position and you pull. Now you can pull with your whole body, but you're pressing up with your fingers. That puts a tremendous amount of stress on your fingers, on your wrists, on your forearm flexors. Why not do it?
when you have full access to the bat.
Yeah, that one got checked off my list early because it was a horrible stroke. For those who love that stroke out there, you can love that stroke. I'm just saying.
speaker-1 (42:53.014)
Yeah, yeah, well, yeah, I'm just saying too. You know, a lot of people love that stroke. And for the client, sure, I've had it done to me. It feels great. But I've also had other things done to my back that felt great too. then put the practitioner at so much risk. I'm not going to be surprised if you get injured. There's, and there's a third position that hardly anybody uses, which is sidelining.
I love Sideline.
Yeah, I think side lying is where it's at because it exposes so a big expanse of the body. It's very comfortable for the client and you've got this big expanse of body that is at a convenient level for you where you don't have to bend over.
I like how you said convenient because when I've taught, I teach a lot of sideline because it allows you to take your tool, your arm, and put it in a position that's comfortable for you because the surface is exposed to you instead of being at an angle or dropping your body weight down or trying to get into something. I mean, it's so much easier for your tool to fit at the right angle to their body in sideline and it is a very highly underused tool.
highly underutilized. And it's a shame because it's really great. When I was doing workshops, we did a lot in sideline position. sort of made them, I said, okay, now we're going to do things in sideline position. And everybody looked at me like, really?
speaker-0 (44:20.756)
used way of working with people.
speaker-0 (44:40.428)
Again, it's that I don't want to change because I've already learned and graduated and I don't want to modify because I'm too comfortable. Anyways, that's my soapbox.
It also allows you to use your forearm in a really effective way that you can start at the top and work your way all the way down to the knee. It gives your hands a rest. And of course, as you're using your forearm, you want your hand to be as relaxed as possible.
And you know, it's not terrible if you ask the person to change position three or four times during massage. We say, no, it has to be only once. I just don't believe that. You have to do what is gonna be most advantageous for you and is also good for the client. And like I said, I find that clients, once they get into the sideline position,
You can almost hear them go, you know, cause it's just, it's so comfortable.
been in this long enough that my clients aged with me. And towards the end of my career and my older clients, most of my older clients went to sideline because they couldn't breathe or they had other conditions or developed kyphosis or they had, they had these and, if I hadn't adapted for them, it made them uncomfortable on the table. so, sideline is a huge tool in your toolbox, not for your hands, but
speaker-0 (46:20.878)
for your client's comfort as well later on down the or your elderly client. we've had an amazing conversation, lots of information, lots of tidbits, so much more available in your book. And so in closing our podcast today, what would you like to tell us about your book? Or I think you told me you had a little special offer for those listeners today.
I do have a 20 % off link that you can follow. So you just click on the link and to thank you for listening all the way to the end, get 20 % off of the book. I tried to make the third edition. The second edition was $39.95. And even though it's 17 years ago,
I wanted to stay accessible, so I only raised the price by $10. So it's $49.95. For a textbook, that's actually a really good price. So it will be even less at 20 % off. I think it's $34.95 or something like that, at 20 % off.
It's highly valuable information to extend your career. So I'm not sure that putting a price on it matters. It helped me extend my career. It taught me to think. if your work did one thing, it would be to feel and think. Really, because that's what it did for me.
Very good point.
speaker-1 (48:00.014)
I'm thrilled to hear that. The goal is to have a long, healthy career. Just because injury happens, now that doesn't have to stop your career. Injury is not inevitable. You can have a long, healthy career. I mean, look at Amy. I have
injury and I had to recover and I had to change.
Exactly. Flexibility.
Yeah, knowing what to do.
Yeah, I've had people tell me, you know, they go back to it time after time throughout their careers because different things happen at different points in your career. So it's, need a reference like that. And unfortunately, there are not a lot out there.
speaker-0 (48:50.252)
I unfortunately is the right word here. I think fortunately we have yours.
Thank you. That's very, very nice.
Fortunately, we have yours and I believe it will take them a long ways in their their career. Well, I want to thank you so much for being on our podcast today and for offering your generous 20 % off for our listeners. And I was really excited to get to meet you because well, you know, you're kind of famous in my mind. I met you years ago in your book. But thank you so much for joining us today and we'll have you again on in the future.
That would be my pleasure. Thank you so much, Amy.
You're welcome.
