Foot Massage

Hi, my name is Tracy Bell and we are going to be demonstrating the full body Swedish massage. Right now we are going to be demonstrating how to massage the foot. So, you want to get your massage oil, maybe a couple of pumps. You don't want too much massage oil because the foot is a small area. Make sure you rub the massage oil into your hands nice and evenly and then apply it all over the area that you're working on, in this case the foot.

You can keep one foot covered so the person's little pinkies dont get all cold, and then once the foot is coated with massage oil, then you can begin with maybe a small stretch, holding the bottom of the heel in your hand and allowing your fingers or the palm of your hand to press against the persons toes and a nice stretch towards the body. Then you can extend the foot down, still holding onto the heel and do a nice stretch towards your own body. You can also hold the heel and do a small stretch internally, and then a nice external stretch of the heel.

Then you can begin work. Now, when you're working with the foot, you want to be careful because you have just mainly bone on the front part of your foot, then you have a lot of tendons that run down into the bony area. So, on the top of the foot youre going to make sure that your strokes that are nice and focused, you can start off using your thumbs, doing small circular strokes of the feet, making sure that you do this area nice and softly, because its kind of bony in that area and you dont want to end up hurting any one or bruising their bone.

You can move your thumb and your focus strokes up to the ankle and make sure that you massage all around the ankle with the thumb, switching hands for your own comfortability, making sure that you don't press too hard into their foot.

Now, if you're working with someone pregnant and you've already received doctors permission to work with someone, make sure that you don't do too much pressure on their feet, because it's said that it could cause early contractions or have your person go into false labor or real labor.

So, after you finish working all around the ankle area and all on the front of the foot, you can slowly work your way down until you get to the bottom part of the foot.

Now, working with the bottom part of the foot, you might need to bring yourself down some so you're more level with the person and their foot. You start off by holding the foot back and allowing your thumb to do small circles on the foot, working your way all the way up to the big toe. Checking in to make sure that the pressure is okay and that you're not hitting any tender spots. Basically you're moving your thumb in small, little, circular patterns all along the bottom aspect of the foot until you get to the top of the foot, or you can bring it out all the way into the toes. If you have a person who is ticklish, you can add more pressure and that should take away some of their sensitivity to touch on the bottom of their foot. Right now what I am doing is I am holding the toes back so that as I go up the aspect of the muscles on the bottom of their foot, there is already a stretch going on, so I'm working the entire muscle while its nice and stretched out. After you finish your small focused strokes with your gum all of the entire length of a foot, you can always take your stroke across and hit the very pads of your feet, when you stand on your tiptoes, not your actual toes, but the pad of your foot. These are the areas that we walk on the most and it gives us most of our foot pain. So then you can allow your thumbs to come up and do broadening stroke from the base of the foot. Now, even though my hands are wrapping around the top of her foot, all my pressure is coming from my thumb. So, she is feeling the pressure on the bottom of her foot and she is feeling a nice, smooth stroke going up the top of her foot. Being very careful on the top, not to put too much pressure, because you don't want to bruise the bone area. You can stand back up and allow yourself to work the entire foot arch, working from the top, down to the bottom, allowing your thumb to really get into those muscles and work that foot out. Ending the massage with a stretch again, pushing and holding with your right hand underneath the heel, pushing with your left hand on the toes and the pads of the feet, and then bringing that same stretch back towards you; holding onto the heels, stretching the foot inward, and then stretching it outward again. This concludes our full body Swedish massage. If you don't have a massage table to use at home, that's okay, you can always use a twin size bed or maybe even a futon, or if it makes you feel even more comfortable, maybe a sheet on the floor, pillows underneath to take some of the pressure off the little lower back. You just want to slide the pillows underneath the knees. Then you can also prop the head by putting a small towel underneath the neck to make the massage more comfortable, if you do not have a massage table at home. Thanks a lot.