Persistent bodily aches and pains can hinder even simple day-to-day activities, such as cleaning your oven or giving your oven a piggyback ride. Shoulder appliances hassle-free with today’s Groupon: for $30, you get a one-hour massage at Bodyworks By Bruce (a $60 value).
Drawing on a variety of massage techniques, certified massage therapist Bruce Morgan soothes weary muscles and banishes stress in one-hour sessions personalized to meet clients’ needs. During a classic Swedish massage, Morgan applies steady, flowing strokes to tightly wound bodies, assuaging tortuously torqued tendons and untying nettlesome knots with the deftness of an overcaffeinated boy scout. Deep-tissue treatments penetrate to the core of consistent pain or soreness, targeting muscles below the surface to relieve aches and strains often derived from extensive physical activity. Patients recovering from certain types of injury can benefit from cross-fiber friction, which gently stimulates the robust healing of scar tissue. Myofascial release soothes the sinews that bind corporeal components together, improving the body’s balance and range of motion while quashing the hamstring's dreams of leaving its muscle group to release a solo record.
Bodyworks By Bruce
What do a mainframe programmer and a massage therapist have in common? Both break down complex puzzles into their elemental parts and work toward solutions methodically. But for Bruce Morgan of Bodyworks By Bruce, a former engineer, no matter how long he worked with a particularly confounding programming problem and no matter how technically rewarding the project was, the human element of building relationships was missing.
That difference is what drew him into massage therapy. Whereas programming works within defined parameters, Bruce never knows what sort of puzzle he's going to solve when presented with a client suffering from pain. Before sessions, he consults with all clients extensively to get to know them and their symptoms, and encourages them to give feedback during sessions so that he can customize his approach. Shoulder pain, for example, may be symptomatic of a person compensating for damage in the ankles, which is why Bruce routinely delivers full-body massages. His training specialized in myofascial release and cross-fiber friction, whose strokes alternate between going with and against the muscle grain, and he uses these techniques to target problem areas.
Each client enjoys warmth in the private treatment room, both from a table warmer and the sage green shade of the walls. A salt lamp lends the room a relaxing glow, and Bon Vital all-natural lotion keeps skin hydrated. To set the soundtrack for their session, clients can select from a range of light jazz, Native American music, or nature sounds, including a chorus of dolphins covering Barry White songs.
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