My Favorite Muscles – part 1
My chosen profession of massage therapist was not just one born out of spiritual enlightenment to help others. While that played a large role in my decision, I’m not ashamed to openly state that I love muscles. I appreciate muscles in the same fashion that an art collector admires a Picasso. I appreciate what nature has created, the complexity of how they all attach to specific boney locations, each with a strategic purpose in their attachment. With functions that are unique and independent of it’s fellow but integral to the team. And just like art, nature has gifted us with endless variations of the human body. All of them beautiful and meaningful in their unique way.
I’m a constant student of human nature and always observing how the body is moving. I have the following questionnaire in my internal dialogue: What are those muscles doing? What messages are they conveying about the person that inhabits them? Why is the left shoulder higher – pelvis anteriorly tilted – right foot inverted…etc? This should in no way be misconstrued as a judgement, it’s all very objective in nature for me.
The top two complaints I hear from clients about their previous massage experiences are: 1) it hurt so bad during and afterwards that I didn’t want to do it again, & (2) I’ve never had a massage that included glutes, wow, that was really awesome. And to this I say ‘Boo!’ Therapists’ responsibility to the public is to help us feel better about our bodies in a healthy, nonsexual environment. Pain is not positive and where would we be without glutes?
So I’m going to jump off the ledge and talk about my favorite muscle first: The Glutes. Here’s how I feel about the glutes: overworked, under appreciated, over sexualized, and definitely poorly attended to. Over my years of being an LMT, it has vividly come to my attention that there is a general fear in our culture of the glutes. This is not just among the average person on the street, even massage therapists are fearful of massaging the glutes. This is leaving our culture with continued longing for healing and lack of compassion for a group of muscles that are greatly in need of care. When I speak of working on the glutes I’m including the following muscles: gluteus maximus, gluteus medius, gluteus minimus, and ‘the deep six’ (lateral hip rotators).
The mechanical nature of the glutes are that they do everything that enables us to be bipeds. That in itself is pretty damn cool. Yet we spend hours sitting on them, impinging blood and nerve flow, torture them for an hour or two at the gym in order to make them look presentable, but then deny them healthy relaxation.
This group of muscles includes one of the largest and most powerful muscles in our body, the gluteus maximus. The glutes help us stand erect and stabilize our center of gravity. They are rich in blood and lymph vessels, and house one of our largest nerves – the sciatic nerve. Due to the type of actions this group is responsible for and the location, glutes are commonly a culprit in low back pain. A tight and inflamed piriformis can impinge the sciatic nerve causing a myriad of issues and pain for anything south of the glutes. Anyone who has experienced a sciatic episode can attest to how debilitating and excruciatingly painful it is.
I recently experienced firsthand both ends of this dilemma and can tell you that a client who has been accused of soliciting sex for simply asking to have the glutes massaged is a very traumatic and humiliating experience for that client. If you go for a full body massage and the glutes are passed over you’ve been short-changed. So then how does one get their glutes massaged outside of a sleazy lingerie-modeling parlor or not treated as though your soliciting sex?
First, when scheduling an appointment with a therapist you need to state that you are seeking glute massage. Don’t be afraid to ask the therapist to clarify how they perform glute work. Over the sheet? Undraped? Not at all? Be upfront as to why you want the glute work. Any person who sits more than an hour a day or is highly athletic has reasonable grounds for needing glute work. Most States have laws regarding draping and they do vary. I can only speak to what I know of which is the State of Oregon. It is completely legal to massage the glutes with respect to observing the draping rules:
334-010-0025 (3)(c)
‘Genitals and gluteal cleft of male and female clients and the breast area of female clients are not exposed;’
With proper draping technique it is very easy to access the glutes for work and still maintain gluteal cleft privacy. And I can’t help but point out that I feel if women’s nipples should be covered, then so should men’s. But that’s a whole other debate.
Second, do not refer to the glutes as ‘butt, ass, or…?’ any other slang term that may denote immaturity or sexual in nature. Due to the social stigmas around massage and sex workers we all have to be more communicative about what we need – this applies to clients and practitioners alike. As a practitioner, I never assume clients are comfortable with glute massage. That’s why I ask. It’s such an important area to work on and has such high therapeutic value that I would be remiss in succumbing to the social fear and not providing my clients with the care they need and deserve. To this day, the only client I’ve ever worked on that had an issue with it was another therapist, who proceeded to tell me that women don’t like to have their glutes massaged undraped. Go figure.
Glute work can have excellent therapeutic value for clients with low back pain, and sciatic nerve impingement. For clients that have office jobs, the endless hours of sitting at a desk can lead to weakening of the glutes and gluteal paresthesia. Working the glutes can not only help get the blood flow back through those near-death glutes, but also offer some much needed stress relief. Clients that are elderly can benefit greatly from any work that supports the joint health of their hips. Athletes push their muscles to the limits on a regular basis. Working the glutes helps them maintain the flexibility and tissue health necessary for them to continue performing at peak with minimal injury.
And here’s the real rub: massaging the glutes feels wonderful! Wonderful doesn’t have to mean sexual, no more than massaging the back or any other part of the body. Ever since I can remember, I’ve had two places that I’ve demanded be rubbed…even as a child…and that’s been my feet and my glutes. Nothing relaxes me faster! It’s a shame we have come to the point where we have to be strategic and scientific on getting our glutes massaged but this is where we are. There is a fetish for every person in the world out there. If I were to not massage certain body parts because it might be something someone gets aroused on then that would leave me with nothing to massage. So go forward, get your glutes massaged and relax!
In closing, here is a lovely recipe for the ‘hinder’ region from the ‘Ebers Papyrus’:
4 parts colocynth
8 parts sweet beer
2 parts honey
1/2 part frankincense
2 parts juniper fruit
5 parts raisin
4 parts fig
4 parts sebesten
remains during the night in the dew and is taken for 4 days – yum!
thenatureofthebiz 
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