Hot stone massage is a type of massage developed using techniques found from Native American history. The Native Americans would use stones heated by fire to treat aching muscles and help them heal, as was often the case with these highly active people. Mary Nelson developed the first massage treatment to use hot stones which is called LaStone Therapy. Since this was created many other masseurs and spas have created their own versions of the treatment such as stone therapy, wild water stone therapy and other such names.
When receiving a hot stone massage, the masseur will use heated smooth stones to heat up certain muscles in the body. Whilst these stones heat up the body, the masseur will use others as extensions of their hands, rubbing them all over a person's body in different massage strokes to achieve complete relaxation.
The advantage of using hot stones is that muscles are warmer and therefore more relaxed, meaning they can be worked to a higher degree without the need to press so hard during massage. Through hot stone massage a masseur can achieve the same effects as deep therapy massage if they do the massage strokes correctly.
Hot stone massage is very difficult to master, and many people find that when they go for one, they actually come out no better than they were before. To reach the right level of skill to perform a good hot stone massage a masseur needs to have been working for many years. Over these years a masseur will develop a sense for what their customers can tolerate in terms of temperature, and also learn how to effectively massage after using stones to gently heat muscles.
Some people have complained about going for a hot stone massage and being treated like an ironing board. This is not the effect that you should be feeling, and if a masseur begins to make you feel this way they need to be told, otherwise a massage could be wasted and you could in fact end up coming out feeling worse than when you went in.
In conclusion, stone massage is a type of massage developed from techniques used by the Native Americans. The fact that it has been used for so long shows that it's an effective type of massage that clearly achieves a greater level of healing and relaxation in the muscles, otherwise people would have moved onto a different form of massage that achieves better results.
Hot stone massage is one of Charlotte Palmer's favourites. She uses her special massage bed from Beauty4Less to make sure she can get it right, and she always has great results from her clients who keep on coming back for more.
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