It’s important to know all the right answers.

It’s even more important to know the right questions.

At the Soma Institute we closely examine every facet of the massage industry to give you every opportunity to be the best massage therapist you can be, but mostly we teach you to ask the right questions to get at the root of your client’s pain.

The client says it feels good when you press into their shoulder.

• Why does it feel good?
• What muscle are you manipulating when you press there?
• What nerve pathways are being affected?
• What types of nerves are being affected?

The client says it hurts when they lift their shoulder a certain way.

• Can you point to where it hurts?
• Can you recreate the action that causes your pain?
• What action is your client performing (flexion, extension, etc)?
• What muscles create that action, and what type of contraction is taking place?

The client says they get a weird pain in their hip when they do certain things.

• What type of pain?
• What is your client’s posture?
• What do they do for work, and how do they sit or stand at work?
• What muscles would be short and tight in whatever deviation they are in?
• How could you as a therapist have them perform certain actions to help inhibit their problem areas?

And of course you end each round of questioning with a question to yourself:

How can I make this better with massage?

Needless to say, those are just a few very basic examples.  But with a class lineup that includes not only massage, but assessment of posture, range of motion and injury, kinesiology, and anatomy and physiology, you will be so far ahead of the game when you graduate from Soma.

Find why so many businesses will only hire Soma graduates, click here for more information.