Do back massagers ever NOT SAY that you're tense?

[GretaWolfcastle]

I can't imagine that they can tell tbh

I've only had a handful of back massages, but I don't think I've ever been told I'm tense. I'm a very relaxed person, perhaps that's why I don't go for massages often

A woman in a shopping precinct told me she could tell how stressed I was by looking at the ridges on my nails . She was peddling nail buffer things, unsurprisingly...

No. But sometimes they sound really shocked, so you know you actually are.

I am a beauty therapist but when I do a back massage I never say anything. Most people carry stress in the shoulders & neck so I just work on that area a bit longer.

You are so right! Then they suggest you come back once a week to get the problem under control

Actually I think they do it to play to people's ego/hypochondriac tendencies. People like to think they're stressed.

you don't think they can tell? are you serious?

i teach yoga and tell whether someone is tense in the shoulders/neck within a few minutes of their first class, even without touching them. i would expect a masseuse to be able to tell for sure, unless they were rubbish in which case i wouldn't be going to them in the first place.

neck/shoulder/back issues are so dominant. a large proportion of the uk population carries stress and tension there - you can tell just by looking around!

I get told my muscles are like concrete!

You don't think they can tell........as they grab your tense muscles in each hand??

Why would you attend a masseuse if you thought they were spinning you a line?

Massage therapists undergo training you know, yet you still pay money to people you think don't have a clue as to whether you're tense or not?

Clever.

Alright sqoosh! Steady ! :)

They can tell. Even a fairly inexperienced person can easily learn to recognise the sensation of tension under their hands. (Amateur massager here.)

Of course some will just be encouraging return business, but good therapists won't need to lie to keep you coming back - you will know that they help you.

She was good this one.

No I've never been told it and always wanted them to say that

I was asked if I did yoga as she thought I was so flexible.

She was right.

Slight tangent, but I saw people getting massaged in Westfield yesterday - Massage Angels, I think it was. For me I could not image paying to be massaged in public; I always saw it as a very intimate act.

Didn't clutch me pearls, but made me wonder if I was out of touch!

They'd see me dribbling through the hole in the table

I hate being massaged , uptight bitch that I am .I fully expect mine are tense.

Worse than a back massage is a bloody indian head massage at the hairdressers. They know to not do them on me at my hairdressers and think I'm odd .But then I find my hair being washed painful.

Surely a tense/tight neck/back/shoulders is a normal human state? We all carry stuff, sit as humans were never meant to sit, do activities we were never meant to do, etc etc, never mind all the physical quirks we all have, all leading to semi-permanent contraction in various muscles. Doesn't necessarily mean we're tense. They can tell a tense muscle, not a tense/stressed state.

I'm with you ggirl, not keen on massages from strangers. And in public! Y'know those in airports? How can you relax in an airport??
And hairdressers? I feel like sitting up and shouting jeez just wash my hair! Yes indeedy. Uptight bitch here.

Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. I had one woman, in the run up to my wedding, and the aftermath of administering SATs (I'm a teacher), say that I had the most tense shoulders she'd seen in ages. I thought she was putting it on a bit, but she did sound genuinely shocked, and kept going on about it, to the point it was actually a bit embarrassing! Others haven't commented at all, though.

it also depends on how quickly they can release the tension. we all have knots/points of stress in our muscles, but sometimes they dissolve very easily under pressure. thats why you feel relief after massages. however there are more, deeper, older knots and pressure points that build up over years and years as we hold our bodies in 'patterns' of behaviour that are unhealthy. these, unless address through massage, yoga (probably other things but these are the two i use) will just solidify further and further in your body until the movement lessens and you get results like hunchbacks.

What, medically , is a knot ?

I don't know what a knot is, exactly. (An accumulation of lactic acid? An area of a muscle that has not fully relaxed?) But when I am massaging I can often feel harder, less moveable areas. My dad generally has them symmetrically between his shoulders and neck, dh generally has them between his shoulder blades, often only on the right. Those areas will often go red after a few minutes, even if I have not been focusing on them. With my dad, they generally relate to stress (barely ever has them since fully retiring, when he does it is almost always after or during a difficult time). With dh they generally relate to a lack of exercise, or, a different repetitive motion, eg a lot of DIY.

I unfortunately can hardly move my shoulder sometimes and this is down to knots I just wish I could afford a massage every week to try and sort it out it's blooming painful sometimes