Hot Stones

So I just rejuvenated my love of the Hot Stones by taking myself through a week long course with Jing Advanced Massage Training in Brighton. This Module is led by one of the schools directors Megan Mari who was trained in hot stones at the original LaStone Spa in the states.

LaStone (pronounced La and not L.A.) is a trademarked style of treatment developed by Mary Nelson in 1993 that encompasses the use of both hot and cold stones within any one treatment. Sounds uncomfortable right? Well, contrast bathing is actually incredibly invigorating and does have several benefits including, reducing swelling,  pumping blood through the area do deliver nutrients, and promoting pain relief, perfect for chronic joint inflammation, promoting healing of an injury if you need to get back to training, and also great if you want the benefit of heat to relax you and assist with chronic pain, but you do need to get back on your toes if you are having massage work done in your lunch break for instance!

As with many forms of  body work the use of any technique evolves and becomes ‘your own’ as you infuse what you’ve learnt with your own skills and style. For me, the way I particularly enjoy delivering the treatment is using the stones in conjunction with my clinical work as an assistant to getting further benefits for you, the client, within that one hour treatment, I tend to favour work around any one joint in a 60 minute session, but with the stones a full body treatment can be a beautifully restorative treatment.

Integrated, dynamic, intense, restorative, calming and deeply nourishing, adding the heat pf the stones is all of these things and more.

Heat of course is beneficial to the soft tissues for several reasons; including decreasing pain by producing an anaesthesia effect, so its perfect when using trigger point therapy and stripping hypertonic muscles, perfect for increasing blood supply to the damaged area, brilliant for assisting injury repair, making muscle and fascia more pliable and reducing muscle contraction, and increasing ease of movement, not forgetting the obvious benefit of encouraging relaxation!

So who wold benefit from this? Anyone an everyone; chronic pain conditions such as fibromyalgia, IBS sufferers, stress and anxiety sufferers. Anyone who engages is in regular physical activity, yoga, weight training, boxing etc etc.

Working with the heat for me as therapist has the immediate obvious benefit of taking a lot of the repetitive strain out of my hands, that’s not say that my treatments consist of me using brute force from my hands, but my hands are in constant use and the heat from the stones has a brilliant healing effect while I am working.  The Stones are basalt stones, volcanic rock that can tolerate being heated up and will retain heat well during the work. SO, How do I apply the stones without burning your skin? Well most importantly I use my own hands to fetch the stones from the water which means I’m only heating them up to a temperature that allows me to put my hands into the water, so if I can hold them, I can certainly apply them.  When I am applying the stones, I will always skim them over a less sensitive part of the body to start with until the stones are ready for a firmer, slower pressure.  I don’t ever leave the stones in a pretty pile over your back when they have come straight out of the heater, I may place the stones at some point, but only once they’ve been used to work with.

Hot Stones are an effective dynamic way to add depth and induce deep relaxation to your treatment and subsequent nights sleep, they can assist with healing and repair of the soft tissues and soften muscles that are in spasm or hypertonic.

Further Questions ? Email me massage@tigertherapy.co.uk