Massage Warsaw- Massage Therapy – Warsaw Acupuncture

Year: 2009

  • Massage Therapy and the HST

    There are plans to harmonize Ontario’s retail sales tax with the federal Goods and Services Tax (GST).  This means that the new 13% harmonized tax will apply to massage therapy as well.

    Here is an excerpt from the Ontario Massage Therapist Association (OMTA).

    Harm to Patients

    Massage therapy is not covered by the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP), instead, these services are paid directly by patients, either out-of-pocket or through their extended health benefit programs. The introduction of HST will mean that:

    • By adding the 8% tax, given that massage therapy is already taxed under the federal Goods and Services Tax, Ontarians will be paying more for health care services, either from their own income or through their extended health benefit plan;
    • With less funding available, patients will be forced to reduce the frequency with which they seek treatment, both for injuries and on-going preventive health care, or eliminate these services entirely;
    • This reduction in services will cause a direct impact on the health and well-being of many Ontarians and, in the long term, will affect Government spending in other areas of health care.

    Harm to RMTs

    The reduction in the funds patients have available, either individually or through an extended health benefit plan, will result in a reduction in services sought by Ontarians.  The profession is already facing significant economic distress.  The introduction of the HST will mean that:

    • RMTs will face increased economic difficulties operating their practices as the available funding for massage therapy is reduced and therefore patients seek fewer or no services;
    • The economic downturn, coupled with the recently announced increase in annual registration fees from the College of Massage Therapists of Ontario, an increase that is necessary in order to sustain the self-regulatory model, will only serve to make matters worse for many RMTs;

    The inability of the profession to sustain itself will result in fewer massage therapists and an inability of the profession to maintain the regulatory structures.

    You can take action by downloading this letter and mailing it to your MPP.  Or you can go to the OMTA website and fill out an online form that will automatically email it to Provincial parliament

  • The cost of Health Care

    The Organisation for Economic and Co-operation and Development (OECD) released the report “OECD Health Data 2009” which compares the health care statistics across OECD countries.

    Surprisingly, the American system of health care is the most expensive in the world in terms of public spending per capita, private spending per capita, and total cost per capita (roughly double the OECD average).

    Canada is more in line with the pack, but still at the higher end.

    Cost of Health Care
    Cost of Health Care

  • What does it feel like to have a stroke?

    This is a fascinating firsthand recount of experiencing a stroke by a neuroscientist. It is a part of the TED series of talks.

  • Tingling or Numbness in Your Fingers

    tingling in handTingling (paresthesia) or numbness in your fingers is a common symptom that many don’t take seriously.  It may seem mildly annoying or even funny at times.  Most people at some time have experienced that sensation when we wake up in an odd position and find that our arm is numb, dead or lifeless.  We can flail it around it and it moves as if it weren’t a part of our body anymore.  We can smack it against the wall and still, we don’t feel any pain.   In this situation, we are experiencing a nerve impingement from lying in a way that almost all nerve signals to the arm are being blocked.  Luckily, this happens rarely for most people and disappears as soon as we wake up and start moving around.   The tingling or numbness we may feel in our fingertips on cold days or possibly every day is a less severe but more permanent type of nerve impingement that many of us suffer from.

    To understand how this works, think of a nerve as a garden hose.  Its job is to carry nerve signals or water to the muscles or garden.  If we step on the hose with all of our weight, we can cut off the water or nerve supply completely.  If we step on it a little bit, we can cut off a percentage of the water or nerve supply.  Consider that our garden needs water and that completely cutting off the water supply for a long period of time will kill everything that grows in the garden.  By the same token, restricting the water supply by 50% would have effects as well.  It may take more time, but eventually the plants may grow smaller than normal, or some may die off.

    Our bodies are similar. If the nerve supply to our arm is restricted or pinched for a long period of time we may notice that the affected arm has less strength, its muscles seem smaller, and it is more prone to injury or pain than the unaffected arm.  Often people with nerve impingements may develop tendonitis (ie. tennis elbow, golfer’s elbow) before they ever notice any serious tingling or numbness.

    I can perform some simple orthopedic tests to see if you are suffering from a nerve impingement and offer a treatment plan of massage, acupuncture and postural re-education to help relieve impingements such as carpal tunnel syndrome or thoracic outlet syndrome and restore normal nerve functioning.

  • Improve Your Shoulder Posture by Changing Your Workout

    One of the most important and long lasting ways to get rid of neck and shoulder pain is to change your posture.  I am sure that you have all heard it from your massage therapist, but, how can you change your posture after it’s been that way for decades?  The body has already been trained and it’s game over, right?

    Wrong!  Using the right fascial massage techniques, stretches and strength training can re-educate your body to develop and accept a new posture.  With postural re-education you will find more permanent results than simply trying to pull your shoulders back.

    Pace Yourself

    Firstly, understand that the change has to be gradual.  It can be next to impossible to change postural habits overnight.  Clients often feel like they have to change their posture instantly and that they are “failing” every time that they catch themselves falling into their old slouches.  I ask them to instead try to have good posture for a total of an hour a day for the first week and then gradually increase it.  This way they can understand that it is a gradual process and that they have a really good chance of succeeding.  Most will be able to do more than an hour a day and feel great about it.

    Strength Training for Posture

    The other approach is to start strengthening your muscles. Posture is only partly habit.  The rest of your posture depends on muscle balance.  The chest muscles (pectoralis major and pectoralis minor) pull the shoulder blades forward, while the back muscles (rhomboids, trapezius and latissimus dorsi) pull the shoulder blades back and toward the spine.  Most people are stronger in the chest than they are in the back, which is why they slouch forward.  Re-balancing your postural muscles involves stretching out the pectoral muscles and strengthening the back muscles.

    Start training your back muscles.

    By strengthening the upper back muscles, specifically the muscles that bring your shoulder blades together, you will find that your body with its balanced muscles will naturally and automatically go into the correct posture.  You won’t have to think about posture or make any real effort again.  The key exercises for strengthening these back muscles are lat pulldowns and rowing motions.

    Focus on Endurance

    The problem with pulling your shoulders back is that these muscles get tired as they lack endurance.  An 8 hour work day is a long time for these muscles to be working against the powerful chest muscles.  When strengthening your postural back muscles, build endurance by lowering the weight and working up to sets of 16 or more reps.

    Take it Easy on Your Chest

    Most people that work out love spending time on their pecs.  Guys love the strong, masculine look that big pecs give, while women like how it firms and lifts the breasts.  Remember though, that strong, short, tight pec muscles are a big reason for our bad posture.  These muscles shorten with repeated slouching and hunching over our computers.  Strengthening these muscles further shorten them and worsen our posture.  You can still work on your chest in a workout, but you will need to change your approach:

    1. Lower the weight you are using.
    2. If you can, leave the bench press alone and work the pec fly machine.  The pec fly works the pecs through its full range of motion including the stretched out end range.
    3. Stretch your pecs before and after every set.  Pec stretches will lengthen the pec muscles and keep them from going into spasm.

    A Second Look at the Elliptical

    Most people use the elliptical by powering through with their legs while their arms limply hold onto the handles and swing. This is good for cardio training and working the legs, but if you want to improve your posture and get rid of your neck pain, try using the elliptical in the following way.

    1. The key is to focus on what you are doing with your upper body.  Try to shift all the work from the legs to the upper body.  It may be difficult at first and you may need to alternate between focusing on the upper body and focusing on the lower body.
    2. There are 2 phases: pulling the handle back and pushing the handle forward.  To work your postural muscles, put all your effort into the pulling back phase while using the pushing forward phase to rest.
    3. When working the upper body, don’t let your arms do all the work.  Focus on your shoulder blade.  It should be either moving outward or pulling inward toward the centre of your back.  The more your shoulder blades are moving, the more you are working your postural muscles.
    4. When you pull back on the handle, try to pull your shoulder blade toward your spine.  This works the rhomboid, lats, and middle and lower traps: the postural muscles that pull your shoulders back.
    5. During the rest phase when the handle is going forward, don’t put too much effort on the arm, but try to distract your shoulder blade and slide it out and forward for a nice stretch.
    6. This exercise works great because there is a lot of repetition which builds  endurance in your postural muscles.  When those back muscles become as strong as or stronger than the front muscles your shoulders will automatically start pulling your shoulders back on their own.

    Good posture, naturally.

  • Jogging for Charity

    I just got an email from the organizers of the Fresh Air Fund Half Marathon in NYC.  It’s a bit far away from Toronto, but it sounds like a great cause.  If any of you can help them out, they would really appreciate it.

    “Would you like to run this year’s New York City Half-Marathon on August 16th while also helping Fresh Air Fund children? Join our Fresh Air Fund-Racers team today! If you would like to register, please visit http://freshair.kintera.org or just click here!  If you have additional questions or are interested in becoming a sponsor, please contact Kate at runners@freshair.org or call (800) 367-0003 ext. 8890.”

    Last summer’s NYC Half-Marathon Presented by NIKE was a huge success for The Fresh Air Fund, and we couldn’t have done it without all of our Fund-Racers! Thank you to the dedicated runners who participated through our team and to everyone who came out to support us! We raised more than $125,000 which will go directly to our free programs for NYC children.