Medical massage, sports massage and wellness massage are founded on techniques and methods established for the Swedish massage; the most widespread and well-known system of western style massages. Have enough time for yourself and experience the whole stock of techniques during your individual treatment session!

When you request a conventional or classical massage in a spa, you will get almost certainly such style of treatment. Massage varies from slow, superficial touches to deep, rather vigorous refreshing techniques. Supported by the concepts of anatomy and physiology, Swedish massage uses five basic category of techniques: gliding stokes (effleurage), rubbings, kneadings (petrissage), gentle tappings (tapotement) and vibrations (rhythmic shaking), completed by strechtings. Of these, a myriad combinations of techniques can be put together when a full-body massage is performed.

What happens during a Swedish-based massage treatment session?

Before the massage session, the qualified therapist asks you whether you have any injuries or health conditions he or she should be aware of, such as pains, tensions, pregnancy, hypertension, living with a pacemaker or other implants. You may ask your therapist any time to apply rather vigorous or gentle moves at any specific region of your body. In case of acute illnesses massage is not recommended to ask for at all. If you have any health-related complaints, seek medical advice anyway from a physician or medical doctor prior to making an appointment with your massage therapist.

After the initial consultation the therapist guides you how to lie on the massage table, for example in a supine or prone position (face up or face down), on the sheet, covered or draped with a towel; then turns away or leaves the room until the client tells “I am ready”.

The massage treatment is performed on the surface of the skin, hence the client is in underwear while lying under the towel or draping. The therapist undrapes only the part of the body he/she is working on, the other regions remain covered. Beyond your comfort zone, this is also important for your temperature feel. Without draping, your body in rest may feel cold after a while, even in a warm room. At turning and at getting off the massage table, the therapist helps the client to keep intimacy with appropriate draping by the towel.

For preparing the skin the therapist applies massage oil, cream, balm, coconut grease, in some cases talc, then performs various massage strokes. These strokes warm up muscles and tissues, release stress and tensions and gradually dissolve “muscle knots”, namely the adhered muscle tissues. A wonderful advantage of massage is that its techniques also promote relaxation.

At a full-body massage, the session usually starts in a supine position (face up) with the massage of legs and arms, on demand continuing further with the chest or the abdomen. After turning the focus is on the back part of the legs, the hip, on the back including your paravertebral, spinal extensor and broad back muscles (latissimus dorsi, lats), finally with special emphasis on the shoulder blades, the rotator cuff, the trapesius muscle, the shoulder girdle and your neck. When performing a full-body massage, the abdomen, the chest and your face are treated upon request only.

Effects of the massage

Effects of the massage depend greatly on the purpose of the treatment or whether the muscles, the nervous system or the lymphatic system is the primary target for reaching the desired therapeutic effect. For example, the purpose of a sports massage session could not only be relaxing but also warming up, toning and straining the skeletal and respiratory muscles before training.

Pleasant effects of a calming and relaxing massage session feels the client mentally at first – right after a treatment one hardly if ever says “I feel my lymphatic system fizzing” or “I am happy, since my intercellular fluid got mobilized”.

Massage has direct effect on the vegetative nervous system, due to the so-called pump effect both the venous and arterial circulations are improved, and the released hormones histamine and bradykinin relax the blood vessel walls even further. During massage, hundreds of thousands of mechanical and temperature sensing receptors of the skin transmit continuously the stimuli towards the spinal cord and the brain; thus the functional activity of the sensory nervous system can also be maintained by the depth and intensity of the touches and strokes. For soreness and non-chronic limb pains, it is typical that the pains disappear or significantly reduce after you rest or sleep following an intensive massage.