Massage

The beauty of massage is that you can do it yourself and you can do it multiple times every day and that's how massage is best done.

Always feel around in the muscles for points or places that make you feel good and relaxed. Massage is a mechanical stimulant for the muscles and though it moves the muscles passively, it can be quite effective because it helps to keep the muscles soft and pliable.
Massage movements can help the muscles to twitch if the motor point (nerve muscle meeting point) of the muscle can be found and stimulated mechanically through manual movements. If you can find pleasurable and relaxing points within the muscle, then the massage is able to twitch (contract) these points which are the motor points and the massage will be even more effective in relaxing the muscles.

If some places in the muscle are too tender, do not use strong pressure in those areas because it can irritate and make the muscle spasm in these areas even more intense. Therefore massage can induce pain or aggravate pain instead of relaxing the muscle.

Pounding the muscles with your hand or using an electric massager can be very effective in massaging large muscles.

Briefly squeezing the muscle with your hand and immediately letting it go can be quite useful especially in the neck or on small to medium size muscles. Also, an effective way for massaging the forearm and arm muscles is to twist the muscles in clockwise and anti-clockwise motion across the shaft of the bone.

For massaging the small muscles of the hand and feet use two fingers, press or roll the muscle with one finger on the top of the hand or foot and the other finger on the palm of the hand or sole of the foot.

The most important areas to massage are the muscles along the side of the spine from the base of the skull to the base of the lower spine. Massage also the slopes the shoulder for the trapezius muscles and muscles over the shoulder blade and along the inner border of the shoulder blade and between the shoulder blades. Include also the latissimus dorsi muscle that runs from the back of the armpit along the back of the chest to the lower back. Massage horizontally also along the lower angle of the shoulder blade wrapping to the side and front of the chest. There are motor points along the upper border of the latissimus dorsi muscle and massage can help twitch to induce relaxation of the muscle.

You can effectively massage the muscles of the back by yourself by leaning against a 1-2 pound plastic coated barbell. This will help to also stretch the back muscles. If you have too much pain, you may wrap the barbell in a small towel or just use a soft rubber ball or a tennis ball to lean against.

You may find it useful also to lean the spine muscles against the edge or corner of a table, door, cabinet or wall. You can slide yourself sideways across that corner to get a better massage effect.

Massage to include as many muscles as you can. These muscles lie on the back and front of the body, the outer and inner aspect of the limbs. Massage to include the lower limb muscles, the gluteus maximus (buttocks), hip, thigh and calf muscles. Include the scalp muscles as well as the facial muscles.

The pressure of the massage should vary according to the tenderness felt during massage. If it is too tender, do not use too much pressure to avoid inducing or aggravating pain. If you should find points that are relaxing and pleasurable, you may massage these areas longer and also find more of these relaxing points.