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Hi, my name is Renee French and I'm here at Practical Massage Therapy in Nashville, Tennessee,
and I'm going to be talking about massage therapy. Swedish massage is the most commonly
offered technique of massage therapy, and it's usually the basis of most of the massages
that you will receive in the United States. It involves the use of 5 strokes that include
long gliding strokes, kneading, tapping, friction, and vibration. So Swedish massage is one of
the basic techniques that most massage therapists will use to build other techniques on. There
are lots of things, different combinations that you can use on the body. With the cross-fiber
friction, you can get some nice warming of the muscles, and getting the connective tissue
to start to release. With the long gliding strokes, you can apply the massage oil and
the cream, and that's also really great for warming up the muscles. And kind of getting
that person in a relaxed state to start receiving massage, and to get their breathing nice and
even flowing. It's a nice technique for opening and closing the massage. You can the end the
massage. And one of my favorite things to do is to end the massage with the tapping.
And it's kind of like a percussion drumming on the belly of the muscle. Kind of the thicker
part of the muscle. you want to make sure and stay away from the bones, as this could
be really uncomfortable. But if you do some tapping on the muscles, it can just really
get the muscles to release any tension that might still be kind of stuck in the muscle
tissue.