ABOUT ME
Hi, I'm Angela!
I have a love for fitness and massage therapy. I'm an anatomy nerd, and assessing body mechanics is my superpower.
The Fit Massage Therapist exists
because two years into my massage career I almost had to quit due to thumb pain.
It was 1997, when I took my first 100-hour massage class. Can you believe back then, you could work as a massage therapist in California with 100 hours of training? WHAT?! Yep, I'm glad the industry has evolved.
I was in college at San Diego State University, getting a Kinesiology degree, so I had a good understanding of anatomy, which gave me an edge towards working with professional athletes.
That's what I aspired to back then, but the work with athletes is what killed my thumbs.
It was my own fault, seeing too many clients, too close together and using my thumbs A LOT with too much pressure.
A huge number of the athletes I saw had varying degrees of hamstring strains and needed massage. My thumbs where the best for friction on the ischial tuberosity so I used them even when it hurt.
I was in my early 20's and it didn't even occur to me I could become injured. I just wanted to excel at medical massage.
What did I do to fix my thumbs?
I got strict on my body mechanics and had a lot of trial and error before finding what worked.
Then this happened
Many years later, I went into teaching massage, and years after that grew my private practice into a multi-therapist massage clinic.
Teaching body mechanics to new massage therapists was my sweet spot. I continually added to the school's curriculum because I believed it wasn't devoting enough time to body mechanics. It barely skimmed the surface.
While working along side therapists in my clinic I saw injuries starting or old injuries flaring up. I consistently, heard about therapists burning out within the first two years of their career.
The more I researched, the more I found proof that massage therapists have the highest rate of overuse injury (by far) of all manual therapies.
Want to know something cool?
Poor body mechanics and overuse injuries can be fixed.
It takes awareness and education
Even though I can easily identify massage therapists' body mechanics flaws, most therapists have no idea what they did to bring on the pain.
My mission at The Fit MT is to bring awareness to poor body mechanics and point out the weak muscles contributing to overuse injuries.
I provide all the tools you need to work a long, pain-free career.
Fitness is necessary to be a massage therapist and avoid injury.
- Exercise; we talk all about it
- Strength; you gotta have strength MT
- Nutrition; of course, because your energy levels are related to the foods you put into your body
- Body Mechanics; you know I want to fix those
Come along, grab your favorite pair of tennis shoes and commit to being a Fit MT!
Speaker/Podcast Guest
