Athletes are a mostly underserved market in the massage therapy and spa industries. Take your massage therapy or spa appointment beyond the regular service with customary add-ons for your weekend warriors and pros.
In this brief 8-minute video, we'll share some add-on service suggestions for athletic clients, which includes scrubs, hot towels, hydrotherapy and more.
Many massage therapists, bodyworkers and more are taught that working around the ankles could cause a miscarriage. In this brief 5-minute video, we will review whether or not it is safe to press around the ankles in a prenatal client.
Myofascial release bodywork is different than regular massage therapy strokes. Myofascial tissues are broken down into three general subcategories which include superfiscial facia, myofascia and visceral fascia. When working with myofascia, practitioners will need to execute specific techniques and applications to primarily address this special layer of soft tissue.
In this brief 6-minute video, we'll share our thoughts about why massage therapists should learn myofascial release bodywork to target myofascia.
There are many different reflexology charts available for use today, but many of these charts do not have matching reflex points. So how would a practitioner know which chart depicts accurate reflex points?
In this brief 10-minute video, we'll review several different foot reflexology charts to show what are commonly accepted reflex points, and more importantly, what might not be a commonly accepted as a true reflexology point depiction.
In this freebrief 9-minute video, we'll review several geriatric medical condition changes that occur with age. Any massage therapist or bodyworker should know these conditions and more prior to working with a geriatric clientele. We'll briefly review cardiac changes, orthopedic changes, changes within the organs and more.
Would you like to take live, online, computer-based training but do not know where to start?
Many of our masssage therapist, cosmetology and bodywork students would like to train from home with a live instructor, but simply do not know how - given most of their work does not include using a computer.
As such, we provide free Welcome Webinars to helpensure a quality or complete live interactive webinar CE class training experience. Students will receive an invite to our welcome webinars AFTER they have registered for one of our live interactive webinar CE classes. Welcome webinars are FREE optional meetings that can help students learn how to view, operate and participate in our webinar program and are great for those who are new to online/webinar training.
Our next welcome webinar is available this Thursday evening, January 7, 2022! Please check your email within 5-minutes aAfter you register for your live webinar training to find your free welcome webinar registration invitation. We hope to see you there!
Suggested appointment prices for manual lymphatic drainage (MLD) services are difficult to develop for some practitioners, especially when they first get started in the modality.
In this brief 7-minute video, we'll review some tips to follow if you're trained in lymphatic drainage and wondering what to charge for your service. This video was primarily created for CE Institute LLC students who train in our MLD application - however some others may find it helpful.
Here is some basic info about setting prices in general for massage therapy and bodyworker services:
Here are some common questions, answers and tips about setting these massage prices:
What should I charge for a one-hour treatment or service? Look to your local peers and consider what they are charging? Consider their property amenities, training or years of experience with their one-hour price. Then, look to your own practice and try to determine if your service is the same, less or better than what they are providing and charge accordingly.
It is important to consider your market’s average price for viability of your own.
Should I charge more for specialized work more so than a "regular" appointment? This can be one of the most puzzling questions and situations in practice today.
One solution would be to charge a fairly high hourly rate and tell the client that they can have any type of service for this charge. Then, I may discount the service if it’s an easy appointment, or they book regularly, or whatever feels appropriate.
Sometimes I feel that massage therapists should charge a little more than their “average” market price so that there is room to offer discounts on slow days/seasons and for repeat/good clients.
Some customers may also be intrigued as to why you “costs” more than average, too. Keep in mind that good pricing involves providing your best possible service for the best possible charge.
How do I explain a price difference for different services? While I personally charge an “expensive” one-size-fits-all price for services, some therapists will have a low base price for massage, and charge more for additional modalities.
It’s perfectly acceptable to charge more for harder or complicated work. Here are three reasons why therapists can (and sometimes should) charge more:
Additional equipment and/or training was involved to provide the service; therefore, a higher price will recoup the financial investment for training and/or equipment. This is often applicable for prenatal, stone, aromatherapy, NMT and so forth.
The work is physically “harder,” which means you will not be able to provide as many appointments that day. This is often applicable for deep tissue and hot stone work.
Extra time is required to provide the service. This often applicable to mobile appointments, stone work, prenatal, shirodhara, etc. (Be sure to add any parking expenses to a mobile appointment price, too!)
What is the best practice to charge for add-on services? You should always charge for “add-ons” such as a foot scrub, paraffin or anything else that would not be normally added to the scheduled service.
If you do provide “add-ons,” it’s important to publicly post a detailed price list of these add-on services on your website, at the reception counter and/or in your service menu.
And, if a client requests an “add-on” during service, tell them the additional costs for the “add-on” before it is provided. While it’s never ideal to talk about money during a service, it could also be considered unethical to charge more than agreed without the client’s informed consent.
Setting your own appointment prices can often feel confusing and conflicting.
Using these guidelines will hopefully help make decisions about this important process. Be upfront, honest and clear about pricing. Regardless of what you charge, you should always provide a professional, reputable service that is reliable for your customers.
Good business usually provides good prices, so don’t be shy to charge what you’re worth, and let those cash registers ring!
We are pleased to announce that we will continue our live interactive webinar training without end.
We are continually updating our live interactive webinar program with best practices. These updates and our most updated practices are reflected in our new Quick Start Video.
Please review this quick 13-minute quick start video to learn what may be required and how to get the most out of our live interactive webinar, computer-based training. Thanks so much and we hope you enjoy the experience!
Contact time, also known as dwell time, must be observed to achieve proper sanitation and disinfection. We'll review several different types of disinfectants in this video and how to exercise proper contact times with the various products. This quick, 11-minute video, will also review the differences between cleaning, disinfection and sanitation practices.
For more comprehensive education, please visit and register at for training at: https://ceinstitute.com/
Are You Cleaning, Disinfecting, or Sanitizing? What is the difference between cleaning, disinfecting and sanitizing? The CDC’s report, “Cleaning and Disinfecting Your Facility,” states:
Cleaning: Physically removes germs, dirt, and impurities from surfaces or objects by washing with soap or detergent and water and rinsing or wiping them away.
Disinfecting: Generally uses chemicals to kill germs on surfaces or objects. Surfaces or objects must be cleaned prior to applying a disinfectant for efficacy. Disinfectants do not work properly through the physical debris that must first be removed during cleaning.
Sanitizing: Lowers the number of germs on surfaces or objects by either cleaning or disinfecting to lower the risk of infection.
Contact time, also known as dwell time, for disinfectants, is the amount of time a surface should remain wet to achieve a sanitization product’s desired result. Disinfection is less effective when proper contact times are not observed. Contact times also require a proper amount of disinfectant, which is just as important as the contact time itself.
For example, some products advertise that they kill 99.9% of germs; however, to kill those 99.9% of germs there is usually a contact time where the surface area must remain wet with the disinfectant.
A contact time, on average, can last between 30 seconds to 10 minutes—or more. The Environmental Protection Agency notes: “If you are using an EPA-registered disinfectant, the product label will contain the dilution and contact-time information along with other critical safety information.”
Sanitizing is less effective when proper contact times are not observed. Contact times also require that a proper amount of sanitizing product is applied, which is just as important as the contact time itself. Here are some examples of products you might be using where contact times should be practiced and adhered to:
Disinfecting Wipes: Some of the most popular household wipes (including those made by Lysol and Clorox) recommend that the surface being disinfected must remain wet for four minutes after being wiped. Disinfectant wipes are perfect to wipe down your massage therapy table, face cradle (including its handles), table leg knobs, door handles or any other hard surface in your massage therapy practice room.
Disinfecting Sprays: In addition to contact time, sprays may have further directions, such as distance to spray a surface to sanitize it. Lysol recommends spraying for three to four seconds within 6 to 8 inches of the surface being sanitized and a contact time of three minutes where the surface must remain wet.
Bleach Solution Soak: When one-third cup of household bleach is mixed with 1 gallon of water, objects should usually be immersed for not less than 60 seconds and not more than 10 minutes, depending on what is being disinfected.
Hand Sanitizer: Hands should remain wet with a hand sanitizer for at least 20 seconds after application. Contact time language is usually not used with hand sanitizer, but I feel it’s appropriate because many will not wet their entire hands with hand sanitizer—nor keep them wet for at least 20 seconds with plentiful product. Our sparing use of sanitizing agents today is mostly born from the appalling shortage of sanitizing agents available during this pandemic, which has not been helpful in preventing the spread of germs.
If You Don’t Use Contact Time, Are You Really Sanitizing? The four sanitizing products and practices listed above have contact times that range from 20 seconds up to 10 minutes, where the surface areas or objects being sanitized must remain wet. Proper sanitation is regularly not achieved if a product’s contact time is not provided.
Some massage therapists will spray or wipe a surface area with a sanitation product and then wipe it dry without allowing for contact time. Are you one of them? This is one of today’s most widespread and improper uses of a sanitizing product. It is important to not rush the sanitization process and instead adhere to proper contact times, or else the entire effort could be an expensive waste of time and leave you exposed to a dirty or infected workspace.
Hard surfaces versus porous objects can have different contact times. Different kinds of sanitizing agents, as well as different sanitation-product manufacturers, could have contrasting instructions.
It is extremely important to follow each product’s individual instructions to keep yourself and your clients safe and healthy, especially during this viral age of COVID-19. It only takes a few seconds to read and practice these various uses, but those few seconds could make the difference of properly sanitizing your business—or leaving it exposed to germs.
In this 23-minute video, we'll review ice massage and other cryotherapy applications to help relieve pain, swelling and other acute diagnosed injury. We also discuss theory of why ice can cause reddening in soft tissue and more. Practitioners should seek greater cryotherapy treatment training prior to applying.
For comprehensive training in soft tissues treatments, please visit and register at: https://ceinstitute.com/
