Swedish massage focuses predominately on muscles. Any if not all muscles involved in locations such as the scalp, face, neck, chest, shoulders, back, hips, legs and feet. Each part mentioned contains a combination of different muscles that make up that location. Large muscle groups needing focus include the trapezius muscle, gluteal muscles and quadriceps.
There are many reasons for receiving a massage or Swedish massage as there are many benefits that come from it. Those benefits include the increase in circulation of blood and fluids in the body. Due to the increase in circulation of blood and fluids in the body and focus on the muscles, more oxygen and nutrients are delivered to the muscles and more metabolic wastes such as lactic acid is removed.
The increase in oxygen delivery allows more energy to be produced in the muscle allowing the muscle to relax. The removal of the metabolic waste lactic acid from the muscles which is a natural by-product of energy production without the presence of oxygen helps to alleviate pain and discomfort from the muscles allowing the muscles to relax easier.
The delivery of nutrients to the muscles allows for the good health, growth, regeneration, rehabilitation of the muscle while allowing to keep the natural pliability of the muscle which helps to increase range of motion. Massage is also heathy for the immune system as well by increasing the movement of lymph fluid that has no natural pump and is dependent upon gravity and the contraction of skeletal muscles for movement. All without being invasive
The human touch is very powerful and healing. Naturally when we injure ourselves, we usually automatically rub out the area or rub an injured area for someone and it feels better. Even if someone is upset or in a bad mood we also naturally touch that individual or even rub on that individual and the person in most cases feel better mentally/psychologically.
So, therefore not only does massage therapy heal us and makes us feel better physically it also positively affects us mentally/physically as well and that psychological support may decrease physical discomfort in that sense since you are put in a better mental state giving you peace of mind. These responses may come from changes as an increase in hormone levels that makes us feel good but nonetheless, we feel good overall. Because we are social beings, we touch each other quite often outside of massage giving people a sense of security as if it is something that just comes to us naturally to do so.
There is also massage called medical massage which is a kind of massage tailored with a specific purpose. Massage is not only used for stress relief and relaxation, medical massage focuses on aspecific “medical” condition. This kind of massage is utilized to manage pain, reduce inflammation, improve circulation, relieve nerve compression, improve digestion, increase flexibility or treat other health care concerns. The results in reality would still reduce stress if achieved, so massage can be seen as always being a stress relief.
These treatments of medical are often repeated as many times as necessary to alleviate a condition or to continuously manage an ongoing chronic condition. Some conditions may never go away, and medical massage is used to reduce problematic symptoms from time to time. Interestingly enough, techniques used in Swedish massage can be used to satisfy a medical massage treatment/result
The earlier a medical condition is addressed the greater the potential of fully alleviating the medical condition. Usually, the medical massage therapy step is taken in order to prevent surgery if possible.
Sometimes massage can be a combination of medical and relaxation massage so the client can get some comfort from a medical condition as well as receive an overall peace of mind as dealing with a chronic medical condition that may be decreasing your quality of life, not only affects you physically but mentally as well. A medical condition be very mentally draining and harm self esteem. Sometimes medical massage is used as the last resort before surgery.
To name a few medical conditions that medical massage can or may help include lymph edema conditions, frozen shoulder, bursitis, sciatica, scoliosis, tennis elbow, golf elbow, carpal tunnel syndrome, nerve impingement, pinched nerve, migraines,…etc.
In retrospect from my experience, massages including medical massage and Swedish massage with deep pressure has contributed to clients avoiding surgery and is not invasive at all.
Even though licensed massage therapists learn a lot of about medical conditions and are trained to treat them, we are never allowed to diagnose anything as that starts to fall out of our scope of practice. We can only recommend or suggest a client to see their doctor to investigate something.