Spa Bodywork: A Guide for Massage Therapists Spa Bodywork: A Guide for Massage Therapists is a textbook that aims to illuminate the powerful links between massage and spa treatments. The goal is not skin care. Instead the treatments outlined here support positive changes in soft-tissue, detoxification, relaxation and renewal.

In Europe, treatment products like mud and seaweed are regularly used for conditions like arthritis, chronic pain, inflammation and fibromyalgia. Spa Bodywork provides the background on these treatment products to demonstrate their synergy with massage. Seaweed, for example, stimulates circulation and lymph flow and supports the detoxification processes of the body. Many useful minerals in seaweed can be absorbed through the skin. Seaweed treatment can have a pronounced effect on the thyroid, and so must be used carefully.

Spa Bodywork breaks down each spa treatment into an easy-to-understand sequence of steps carefully designed to provide an efficient routine for practitioners and a satisfying experience for clients. The book provides instructions for standard methods of delivery as well as for some creative options that make sense when the service is delivered by a massage therapist. This integration of massage and spa treatment products offers spas, massage clinics and therapists the opportunity to include body treatments on their menu of services that focus on the body and not on beauty. Clients do not need to give up their massage to enjoy a spa treatment.

Although wet room treatments (i.e. treatments that depend on expensive hydrotherapy equipment such as Vichy showers) are discussed, the emphasis is on the delivery of spa treatments in a dry room setting (i.e. no shower). This makes the book useable in a wide range of settings including the massage classroom and the private massage practice.

Spa Bodywork is available through Lippincott, Williams and Wilkins and can be purchased by going to: http://connection.lww.com/williamsspa