Give your hands the relaxation and soothing touch they deserve with this easy guide on how to give a wonderful hand massage. With a few simple steps, you can provide relief for tense muscles, reduce stress and tension, and leave your hands feeling refreshed and cared for.
Warm the hands first.
Before starting your hand massage, it’s important to prepare the hands for maximum comfort and relaxation. Gently warm them up by washing both hands thoroughly under warm running water for a few minutes. Not only will this ensure you hands are clean and sanitised, it naturally prepares your body too, increasing the circulation and warmth in your hands to promote a more enjoyable massage.
Setting Up
It’s really important to ensure both giver and receiver of the hands massage are comfortable. There are a few options – either across the table from one another, or the receiver sitting in a lounge chair and the giver seated in a chair next to them. Either option is fine but ensure your posture is supported and you are comfortable. If sitting in a chair next to the receiver, sit next to them on their left side, place a towel on your lap and gently place the persons left hand on your knees.
Use Kneading Movements from shoulder to hand.
The perfect way to begin a hand massage is to use a holistic approach and gently knead and massage the whole arm starting at the shoulder, gently squeeze with both hands, working your way down the biceps and triceps, and down the forearm. Do this twice, once from the anterior position, (biceps), and once from the posterior position (triceps), along the forearm to the hand. Complete one whole arm and hand before moving to the other side. Don’t forget to breathe.
Gently massage the joints.
When giving a hand massage, we often forget to pay proper attention to the joints. Using up and down movements, gently rotate the wrists and knuckles, metacarpals and phalanges (see pic). Don’t press too hard as you flex and rotate—just enough pressure so that you feel the warmth and relaxation without pain. Move your way up and down each joint of the hand and wrist slowly several times.
Link thumbs and pinkies to open the hand for trigger point therapy.
Link your pinkie finger inside your recipients pinkie and thumb to ‘open the palm’. This provides great access to then perform vertical and horizontal ‘sliding’ up and down, side to side. First, use your pinkies and the side of your hand to hold the recipients hand open, cross your thumbs to the other side of the palm and ‘slide open’ and then up and down (see images)
Utilize Pressure Points to Release Stress in the Hands and Fingers
Use gentle circular thumb pressure concentrating around the thumb mound as there are many trigger point in this area. Use a little cream for slip if your recipients hands are too dry. Flip the hand over and complete the same kneading and squeezing techniques on the top of the hand.
Massage each finger separately, and don’t forget the finger snaps.
Once you have sufficiently kneaded the arm including the shoulder, loosened the joints and worked on both the palms and tops of the hand, it’s time to move to the fingers. With your thumb and forefinger, start with their thumb and finger walk your thumb and forefinger firstly along the medial, and then the anterior and posterior lines of the fingers. Once you get to the nail, place the nail bed between first and second fingers and gently ‘snap’ and slide your fingers off the nail. Repeat until all fingers are ‘walked down and snapped’.
On completion of one hand, reposition your body so you can reach the other arm and hand without straining. Repeat the same process, and when you are done, quietly mention to your recipient that you have finished. ask for feedback on what they thought, as its always nice to receive lovely positive feedback. And in order to grow, ask if they have any constructive criticism, areas your could improve on, things they particularly liked, or didn’t.
At 2 Hands Corporate massage, a hand massage is included in our 15 minute seated massages. so to book a chair massage, seated massage, or corporate massage (0one and the same thing) with a hand massage included, please send an enquiry. I hope you enjoyed this blog. If you found it useful, please like, comment or share.
