Diaphragm release. Use this technique when you're working with someone with restricted breathing.

It also provides the basis for you to teach them a self-care exercise by teaching them how to curl their fingers underneath the rib cage and go side to side on an exhale.
Notice I'm turning the fingers just under the rib cage just a little bit or from the side, I'm letting the fingers go in just easily there. Just like that.

With her breath is nice so she inhales and then exhales and as she exhales my fingers can slide in and at the end of the exhale a little cross fiber.

And I can bring that over to this side. It's easy to curl the fingers underneath the ribcage here as she breathes in and then as she breathes out the fingers sink in and I can do a little movement.

I can even use this as a teaching tool for self-care. I can ask her to bring both hands up and curl them under her ribs as she controls her breathing.

So it's a breathe in And then as she breathes out, she curls the fingers under and works this area just a little bit. For breathing restriction, for pain in this area,

this is a lovely self-care tool to teach your client. Depending on the tension of the abdominal and the oblique muscles, you may or may not be able to reach up under far enough to reach the diaphragm.

That is the goal, however, and you start slow, start gentle, and gradually over a series of treatments, perhaps, you will be able to reach the very edge of the diaphragm and hopefully produce some release in it.

It will be important for the client to reproduce this technique repeatedly on their own rib cage to get good results. It's not a technique that you're automatically going to see them breathing deeper after you've done the technique.

Rather, it is an accumulation of work that needs to be done in that area. Having the depth of knowledge and experience to be able to teach your clients these kinds of remedial exercises really does differentiate you as a massage therapist.

If that's the kind of practice you want to have, client-centered, result-oriented, where your clients know that they can come to you to get out of pain and back in their game,
then this is the coursework for you.

I encourage you to join David Marin and get certified in medical massage therapy from Health Matters Summars.