Massage and Cellulite

Cellulite. The bane of most women’s existence. Cellulite. You’ve heard of it before, know what it looks like and probably paranoid that it’s getting worse as time wears on. And the likely scenario of its discovery is one in which one minute you’re feeling ok with the tone of your body and suddenly, just suddenly out of nowhere, you see it and you’re taken aback as if it occurred overnight. It’s either genetic or diet/lifestyle related as to why it appears. If you’re new to cellulite, you’ll be asking if you can get rid of it. Especially in the lifetime of my professional career, I get asked that often enough by women. And of the men when we talk about body conditions, the typical question is “oh yeh…I don’t really have any do i?…” in a little too casual nonchalant tone of voice.

Can you get rid of cellulite with massage? You can’t get rid of fat through massage (refer to previous article on Massage and Weight Loss) but you can improve the appearance of the texture of the fat. Having said that, takes a lot of work from the massage therapist’s end to produce results. Cellulite is a stubborn type of fat which appears irregularly lumpy because it randomly pulls points on the skin inwards and clings to the muscle tissue on the underside of the fat layer. The idea through massage is to break up the adhesions and warm up the fatty layer to smooth the lumpiness out as best as possible. To think that you can just squeeze and pop fat globules through massage is a fool’s dream.

If you have cellulite from a genetic influence, then you have a close to zero chance of massage helping your butt ever looking peachy again. If it’s due to a poor diet then massage can definitely help. Also, lots of water and cleaning up your diet will speed up that process. The water, at a microscopic level, helps in giving a smoother glide between layers of fibre and getting less “sticky” between the fatty layer and skin and muscle. And of course, eating cleaner will help with fat loss. Some massage therapists but usually professional skin specialists can tell if the cellulite has a genetic or dietary influence to it developing.

Does a cellulite massage hurt? I don’t get asked that often. Actually, no one bothers to ask me that, so I tend to let clients know. It’s not relaxing at all! It’s not a pleasant experience and one section takes a long time to massage. As an example, one calf will take an hour and you’ll need more than one massage treatment. You’re also best booking in long blocks of massage appointments than short treatments spread out over time. I also should add, it’s a temporary fix. At the end of the day, if you don’t make changes to your lifestyle to help yourself then you’re really just wasting your time and money on cellulite massage.

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