What is a seated massage?

A seated massage, also known as a chair massage or an on-site massage, is a massage that is performed with the patient seated in a massage chair as opposed to lying on a massage table. It is a much quicker, much less personal form of massage than most methods. This is because the massage chair is often brought to the patient at their location, the patient’s clothes stay on the entire time, and to many people it doesn’t feel as intimate as lying on a table does.

It is not a type of massage therapy that is focused on spirituality. Instead, seated massage focuses all of its energy on simply relieving immediate stress and tension in the body. While this may lead to overall well-being and healing, it is not the claim of seated massage.

While some massage therapy locations offer seated massages in their physical building, the majority of seated massages are performed on-site. This can include many places of business or other public places, such as malls.

What is the history of a seated massage?

Created in the 1980’s, seated massage is one of the more recently developed forms of massage. It was formed by David Palmer who discovered that there were not enough patients to go around for all the massage therapists at his institute (he had recently taken over the Amma Institute of Traditional Japanese Massage). He realized that there were many reasons for this shortage of patients, such as the following: most people didn’t have the time that it took to go get a massage, traditional table massages themselves took too long for many rushed people, and some people found table massages to be a little too intimate.

With all of this in mind, he went on to create the seated massage, and later the massage chair (this chair was designed so that, when the patient sits in it, it relieves much of the stress and strain that can be developed by sitting for long periods in traditional chairs). The seated massage was different than traditional forms of massage in three key ways: it could be done anywhere—at the patient’s office or home, in a mall, wherever it was necessary; it took less time than a traditional massage; and it was less intimate and personal than a traditional table massage.

These differences appealed to many people, including large corporation owners, and the seated massage became fairly popular rather quickly. Now, many companies have regular on-site seated massages for their employees, many malls have seated massage stations, and many individuals hire massage therapists to perform seated massages on a regular basis.

 

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