My company offers chair massages every other month or so; I had one for the first time last week and the woman claimed that toxins were in my knotted-up back and shoulder muscles, and that the procedure would break them up to be flushed out of my body. Is there any truth to this or is it mostly BS?
Well, that statement is BS, but one can work around to a truth in it. If you’ve got knots in your muscles due to stress, you’ve got stress-related hormones at elevated levels, which might be called “toxic.” You’ve also got a mental state corresponding to a electrochemical pattern which includes neurotransmitters at levels that might also be called “toxic.” A good massage that relaxes your muscles can change this mental state, and consistent massage therapy will then result in restoring a less “toxic” pattern. But there’s nothing stored in the muscles that’s going to get released and make you all better, no. I guess tense muscles might have a little lactic acid buildup, but I doubt it’s significant.
Chair massage is the McDonalds of massage therapy- quick n’ cheap. In my personal experience, the individual massage therapist makes all the difference. For example, I’m pretty much agnostic as to some of the more sweeping claims for MT (eastern Chi disciplines, etc.), but I’ve seen some incredibly intuitive therapists work wonders.
I’ve had massage therapy as part of PT for spinal problems and it is a big help. They talk about feeling knots and working them out - by “knots” they mean that the muscle fibers can tangle and can get untangled through massage (which seems surprising when I think of the chicken I’m preparing to cook, but which wisdom is repeated in many places).
I think if you’re not in the emergency room, nobody is flushing toxins out of your body, but the point is a slippery one because “toxins” is pretty vague. Muscles can be sore from a buildup of lactic acid, and increasing blood flow by squeezing and relaxing the muscle ought to help speed that - does that count?
I’m a massage therapist. We’re not allowed to diagnose or prescribe, which means you should ignore anything you hear from our mouths but pay very close attention to what you feel from our hands. In my experience, there is very little correlation between the validity of the patter and the effectiveness of the work, so unless she was annoying just sit there, zone out, and decide later how the benefit compared with the cost.
I was just going to say that the toxins part is almost certainly BS, but it feels good so do it anyway.
MT’s will tell you that you should drink a lot of water after a massage to flush out the released toxins. This has been discussed on this forum before and there is no evidence that toxins are released after mechanical manipulation of the muscles. But drinking water is generally just all-around good for you anyway.
Massages are good for relieving stress, which can indirectly have all sorts of health implications, so in that sense, at least, it’s legitimate. And most of the massage therapists I’ve encountered don’t really claim anything more than that. Really, if it’s nice and comfy and feels good, how much should it matter if it’s “flushing out toxins”?
I think some massage therapies are real and some a crock. Here in Thailand, there are scads of places offering traditional Thai massage (and no, not THAT kind of massage, although there ARE lots of those places, too). Traditional Thai masage is big business in Thailand, and many places’ “credentials” would not bear scrutiny. A temple called Wat Pho here in Bangkok is a big center for teaching traditional Thai massage, and they seem legit. You can be certified by the government, I think, after taking their courses. But so many places, especially near tourist areas, just hang out a sign reading “Traditional Thai Massage” and then pummel unsuspecting dupes into a pulp. I’m sure some of them could do some real damage.
And the tourist angle seems to have caught on throughout the region. I’ve seen signs advertising traditional Cambodian, Malaysian, Indonesian, etc, massage in the relevant countries, and I would be dubious about the quality.
The toxins thing sounds like so much BS. On the other hand, I spent absolutely years with ever increasing RSI issues in my arm. It took a massage therapist 3 hours over 2 weeks to pretty much completely eliminate the pain. I know the plural of anecdote isn’t data, but as anecdotes go, I gotta tell you, the work she did was amazing.
Well, the “toxins” part is *mostly *BS, but certainly massage can help relieve stress and muscle tension.
Siam Sam
Wat Po is pretty good. My wife was taught there and at another place in Chiang Mai and received a government certification. There was also a place (Might have been Wat Po) that taught traditional massage to the blind. The training took several months to complete and had items like; “How to massage really fat people” and lots of little charts showing pressure points and something like the Chinese acupuncture lines. I’ve had traditional massage many times and always enjoyed them after it was over. It feels good, but as far as some kind of medical benefit goes, I’d seriously doubt that. I notice that even the true believers in the granola-munching goodness of massage go to a real doctor when they’re sick.
Regards
testy
The blind have traditionally been regarded here as the best masseurs, because of their supposed extra sensitivity to touch. There’s a government outreach program just north of Bangkok called the Skill Development Center for the Blind that teaches them the skills. And if I remember correctly, there’s also a place on Sukhumvit Road called Marble House that might specialize in that, too. One of those places might be the one you’re referring to.