Deep Tissue Massage: A Visual Guide to Techniques

Featuring more than 250 photographs and 50 anatomical drawings, Deep Tissue Massage is the standard guide to the essentials of touch, biomechanics, and positioning options for a multitude of strategies to treat all major conditions encountered in a bodywork practice.

The book is divided into three sections. “Fundamentals” covers basic skills of palpation, explaining the deeper layers of the body and presenting detailed instruction on working with these layers to release tension. This section gives clear information on the proper use of knuckles, fist, forearms, and elbows in preventing injury to the therapist. “Strategies” offers more precise protocols and treatment plans for the entire body with emphasis on client positioning options to stretch muscles rather than just kneading tissues. “Caveats” details areas in which the practitioner needs to exercise caution.

Deep Tissue Massage presents a wealth of information in a way the therapist can immediately utilize. This new edition has been thoroughly revised and includes a preface to the new edition, a foreword, an index, a Suggested Reading list, and extended sections on integrating deep-tissue massage into bodywork practice and the psychology of treating injuries.

Art Riggs is a Certified Advanced Rolfer and massage therapist who has been teaching bodywork since 1988 and now sells Myofascial release videos and manuals worldwide. A lifetime of hard physical activity and high level athletic pursuits including ultra-marathons led him to bodywork, first as a grateful recipient, and later as a student. The fulfillment he experienced in both receiving and performing bodywork led him away from his graduate studies in Exercise Physiology at the University of California, Berkeley to a full time career as a Rolfer and teacher of Deep Tissue Massage. He has conducted numerous workshops for health spas and for medical professionals, including physical therapists, and has assisted in Rolf Institute trainings.

For the first ten years of his practice, he specialized in myofascial release at a physical therapy clinic where his interest in the treatment of injuries was cultivated. He has worked with several Olympic athletes, professional football and basketball players, and professional dancers and musicians to treat injuries and to improve performance. However, his teaching and the practice of working with the general population to provide a better awareness of their bodies and allow more ease and comfort in their everyday lives remains the most gratifying aspect of his work. Art Riggs lives and teaches in the San Francisco Bay Area. Visit him at www.deeptissuemassagemanual.com.