Working as a massage therapist can be a very rewarding career. Not only does it have great potential to make money, it is also a position in which you are helping people feel better and live better lives.
Massage isn’t just something that rich people get done as a frivolous expense. These days massage therapy has become synonymous with regular health care. Many chiropractic clinics are even employing licensed massage therapists in their offices to give their clients even more healthy benefits.
Getting started: What do I need to do first?
If you want to help people relieve stress and pain, massage therapy may be the career choice for you. However, you should do some research ahead of time to find out your states requirements for training and licensing. Each state is different.
You will need to learn anatomy and physiology so that you have an understanding of how the human body works and what nerves connect with which different parts of the body. Someone that does not know these things could cause harm to another person during the massage.
You will also need to decide what type of therapy you would like to specialize in. There are over 80 different types. Obviously you don’t need to stick with just one, but you’ll want to make sure you have the correct training for the therapies you would like to use in your practice.
Just a few of the possible specialties out there include deep-tissue massage, sports massage, orthopedic massage and reflexology. Different modalities work better for different types of patients. An elderly client may be interested in something like reflexology just to relax, while an athlete may want deep-tissue massage in order to relieve overworked muscles.
Invest in equipment
Once you have your training, and licensing if needed, you will need to invest in equipment. One of the first and most important things in your massage tool shed will be your table. There are many different choice, and electric massage tables can be a great investment for your future as a massage therapist.
There are two basic types of massage tables, the stationary table and the electric table. The electric table allows you to adjust your patient for their comfort and for your workability. That flexibility make electric massage tables a better choice, even with their heftier price tag which is often double the cost of a standard table.
While the table is one of your most important, and most expensive, tools you’ll need in order to start you career as a massage therapist, there are other tools you will need to invest in also.
You will need:
- Sheets and pillows
- Towels
- Lotions and massage oils
- Candles and ambient music
- Marketing materials
Things to remember
Even if you are working out of another business, such as a chiropractor’s office, you will still want to invest in your own marketing materials in order to bring in clients that might not be chiropractic clients or that might not receive the marketing materials available through your partner’s business.
You sheets and towels will need to be changed out each client and cleaned often, so you may also want to invest in a linen cleaning company instead of doing the work yourself. A company specializing in this sort of this can be a great asset and a time saver for you.