40 Fun Facts About Massage

Which everyday hair-care word comes from a Hindi term for pressing the muscles, and first meant to massage?

Shampoo entered English in 1762 as a word for a vigorous body rub. It took about another century to mean washing the hair.

Janet Travell, a pioneer of treating muscle pain, was the first female personal physician to which US president?

John F. Kennedy appointed her after her treatments eased the severe back pain left by his wartime injuries and surgeries.

Which breakfast-cereal pioneer of the Battle Creek Sanitarium wrote The Art of Massage and patented a massage apparatus?

John Harvey Kellogg filled his Michigan health resort with mechanical slapping and vibrating machines, prescribing them for anaemia and weak nerves.

Which country's traditional massage, mixing acupressure with assisted yoga poses, joined UNESCO's heritage list in 2019?

Thailand teaches the art at Bangkok's Wat Pho, the Temple of the Reclining Buddha, where scholars had its techniques inscribed on stone tablets in the 1830s.

Petrissage and tapotement, two of the five basic strokes of classic Western massage, are named in which language?

French terms were attached to the strokes in 1868 by physician Johann Georg Mezger, who also coined the phrase Swedish massage system.

Which Japanese bodywork style, popularised by Tokujiro Namikoshi, has a name that means finger pressure?

Shiatsu grew out of the older anma tradition, and its practitioners lean their body weight in through thumbs and palms rather than using any instrument.

Which therapy left the round purple marks seen on swimmer Michael Phelps at the 2016 Rio Olympics?

Cupping pulls the skin up into a vacuum inside each cup, and the bruises it left across his back made headlines during the Games.

Which ancient Greek physician wrote that a doctor must be experienced in many things, but assuredly in rubbing?

Hippocrates was describing the treatment his countrymen called anatripsis, which the Romans later knew as frictio.

Reflexology, once called zone therapy, presses mainly on which part of the body, said to mirror every organ?

The feet were mapped into reflex areas by nurse Eunice Ingham in the 1930s and 1940s, though no convincing evidence shows the method treats any condition.

Lomilomi, a flowing massage that often uses the forearms and elbows, is the traditional massage of which islands?

Hawaii handed lomilomi down within families, which is why the style still varies from one island to the next.

Saqqara's so-called Tomb of the Physician, carved with a possible early massage scene, stands in which country?

Egypt's carving dates to about 2330 BC and shows two men having their hands worked on, making it one of the oldest images linked to the practice.

Abhyanga, a head-to-toe massage with warm herb-infused oil, belongs to which traditional Indian system of medicine?

Ayurveda counts abhyanga among its daily health practices, and sesame is the base oil it traditionally calls for.

Long gliding massage strokes on an arm or leg are traditionally pushed toward which organ?

The heart is the target because the stroke acts as a mechanical pump, starting at the bottom of the limb and nudging venous blood back up.

Which compound, long blamed for the muscle soreness that peaks days after exercise, actually clears within an hour?

Lactic acid is back to normal levels far too soon to cause the delayed ache, which is now put down to tiny tears in the muscle fibres.

Acupressure works along the same energy channels as acupuncture, known in Chinese medicine by which name?

Meridians are said to carry a life energy called qi, and pressing on them is meant to clear blockages, though neither has been observed by science.

Danish couple Emil and Estrid Vodder devised a gentle 1930s massage technique to drain which body system?

Lymphatic swelling set the Vodders thinking, after patients with chronic colds kept arriving with enlarged lymph nodes.

Hot stone massage usually relies on smooth, flat stones made of which dark volcanic rock?

Basalt retains heat, so the warmed stones can be rested along the spine or held in the therapist's hands during the strokes.

Which practice of adding plant essences to massage oil is named after a 1937 book by chemist René-Maurice Gattefossé?

Aromatherapy oils are too concentrated to use neat, so they are diluted in a carrier such as jojoba or sweet almond before they touch the skin.

Johann Georg Mezger, the physician who named the strokes of Swedish massage, was born and trained in which country?

Netherlands-born Mezger studied medicine at Leiden, and his patients later included Empress Elisabeth of Austria and Otto von Bismarck.

Which light, skimming stroke, used to warm up the muscles, traditionally opens and closes a Swedish massage?

Effleurage takes its name from a verb meaning to skim, and therapists also use it as the link between every other stroke in the routine.

Petrissage, a deep Swedish massage stroke done with the palms and thumbs, means doing what to the muscles?

Kneading is what the name literally means, and the same family of strokes takes in wringing, skin rolling and a pick-up-and-squeeze.

Which biochemist created Structural Integration, a deep bodywork course of ten sessions now sold under her surname?

Ida Rolf held a doctorate in biological chemistry from Columbia, and Rolfers nickname her fixed sequence of sessions the recipe.

Which sheet-like connective tissue, wrapped around every muscle, is the target of foam rolling and structural bodywork?

Fascia is built mainly from type I collagen fibres, and its deep layer divides groups of muscles into separate compartments.

Which Chinese massage therapy takes its name from the words for push and for lift and squeeze?

Tui na reached Japan during the Nara period, more than twelve centuries ago, and grew there into a home-grown tradition of its own.

Which Chinese practice scrapes oiled skin with a smooth-edged tool until reddish, bruise-like marks appear?

Gua sha tools range from ceramic spoons and coins to jade stones, which is why English speakers have also called it spooning or coining.

Which blind swordsman, played by Shintaro Katsu in 26 Japanese films, earns his living as a travelling masseur?

Zatoichi wanders the countryside of the 1830s and 1840s giving massages and gambling at dice, a harmless front for his skill with a blade.

In a Russian banya, bathers are massaged with a venik, a leafy bundle cut from oak or which pale-barked tree?

Birch branches are dried in bunches and swished over the skin, which also drives hot air from the steam room onto the body.

Which bathhouse tradition follows its steam with a scrub from a coarse kese mitten and a joint-cracking massage?

Hammam attendants were traditionally young men called tellaks, who soaped and scrubbed their clients before the massage began.

Which name is given to tender knots in taut muscle that send pain to distant parts of the body when pressed?

Trigger points fill a two-volume manual by Janet Travell and David Simons, who argued that the referred pain is often misdiagnosed.

Which condition rules out massaging the affected limb, because a dislodged clot could travel to the lungs?

Deep vein thrombosis is treated as an absolute bar to working on that limb, whereas a fever only postpones a session until it has passed.

Which small muscle deep in the buttock can irritate the sciatic nerve running beneath it, a common massage target?

Piriformis anatomy varies: in about 17% of people, part or all of the sciatic nerve runs straight through the muscle instead of below it.

The first mass-marketed massage chair was built from wood and scrap materials in 1954 by Nobuo Fujimoto in which city?

Osaka's invention caught on so well at home that by 2018 surveys suggested more than a fifth of Japanese households owned one.

Which fencing master, wrongly credited with inventing Swedish massage, ran a Stockholm gymnastics institute from 1813?

Pehr Henrik Ling turned to exercise after fencing eased the gout in his arm, and he named his pupils the keepers of his Swedish Movement Cure.

Which warm-pool bodywork did Harold Dull create at Harbin Hot Springs by adapting a Japanese pressure massage to water?

Watsu is given in chest-deep water at about 35 °C, with the therapist cradling, rocking and stretching the floating client.

Which exam from the Federation of State Massage Therapy Boards do most US states accept for licensing therapists?

MBLEx is short for the Massage & Bodywork Licensing Examination, and Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia accept it alongside the states.

Which California hot-springs retreat, a hub of the 1960s Human Potential Movement, lends its name to a style of massage?

Esalen began as Slate's Hot Springs, a stop for people seeking relief from physical ailments, and later set up an association to regulate its own massage practitioners.

Which spa fixture rains warm water from a horizontal bar onto a client lying down?

Vichy shower clients lie on a shallow wet bed with built-in drainage, usually on their back first before being rolled onto their stomach.

The Bowen technique, named after a healer with no formal medical training, was developed in which country?

Australia's Tom Bowen called his approach a gift from God and claimed to average 65 patients a day, yet he never wrote the method down.

Which tapotement move in Swedish massage strikes the body with the little-finger edge of the hand in rapid chops?

Hacking is one of five percussion moves, alongside beating, slapping, tapping and a hollow-handed clap, all meant to wake up the nervous system.

Which large surface muscle, running from the skull's base to the mid-back, lifts the shoulders in a shrug?

Trapezius fibres do three jobs: the upper ones raise the shoulder blades, the middle ones pull them back and the lower ones draw them down.