Massage Techniques: Friction
Updated: Sep 13
Friction involves rubbing one body surface against another while maintaining constant and equal pressure in all directions. The term friction (frik-shon) comes from the French term frictionner, meaning "to rub". Movements may be linear or circular. Unlike effleurage, in which pressure is unequal when applied in two or more directions (centripetal = deeper pressure), frcition involves equal pressure in all directions. These movements can produc heat and may stimulate therapeutic inflammation. Types of pressure are superficial and deep.
Superficial friction: The practitioner's hands slide over the client's skin. Variations of superficial friction are superficial warming, rolling, and wringing.
Deep friction: The practitioner's hands do not slide across the client's skin but rather take the skin with it, allowing the force to be transmitted directly to the deep tissues, including tendons and ligaments. Deep friction can help muscle, tendon, and ligament lesions heal quickly and completely, and can decrease adhesions at the injury site, thereby increasing tissue mobility and assisting in the repatterning of scar tissue itselfs. Variations of deep friction are transverse or cross-fiber, chucking, and circular.
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