It’s 15 minutes of heaven, a bi-monthly fix that has petite secretaries and beefy mechanics begging for more.
Dental workers are hooked. Grocery clerks, too. For that matter, anyone who’s ever had a deep therapeutic massage at work feels the knead.
“Oh, you don’t want to know what we say when we come out of there,” laughs Janet Aitken, a credit analyst with Coca-Cola in Calgary. “It’s: ‘Ahhhh. That’s got to be better than, you know. . . .’ ”
Twice a month, for four years now, Aitken and about 20 other fellow workers give up their coffee break for the soothing magic of a therapist’s skilled hands.
They are not alone. Across Calgary, on-site massage is becoming more popular, lifting employees’ headaches, untangling knots in their necks and relieving the pain in their wrists and hands.
“It’s the part of the business that is really growing,” says Shelly Rimes, owner of the Hillhurst Therapeutic and Sports Massage Clinic, which has five major corporate clients.
Rimes began on-site massage five years ago. Initially, without much scientific data, it was hard to sell corporations on the benefits of a 15-minute massage. Now aching workers make the pitch.
“We’re just really starting to see the impact of computers,” says Rimes. “The feedback is that it’s a wellness program everyone wants to get involved in. It’s easy, safe and convenient.”
Rimes and others in the massage industry say the injuries they see are the same — repetitive strain problems affecting anyone stationed at a computer, or people performing repetitive motions such as grocery clerks scanning merchandise.
“It’s amazing the number of people who sit at a computer for four or five hours straight,” says Rimes.
Michael Fletcher, a massage therapist in Red Deer who is establishing a new office in Calgary this month, agrees the computer can be a worker’s Achilles heel.
“In bigger cities, women love the service,” says Fletcher. “Here (in Red Deer) the majority of our business focuses on men. We have a lot of clients working in maintenance shops. It’s an interesting twist.”
Like Rimes, Fletcher’s Heavenly Touch Massage business charges approximately $1 a minute and uses a portable massage chair that allows the therapist to work any part of the client’s body. Often, company insurance plans pick up a percentage, if not all, of the treatment.
The massage is done without oils and with the client fully clothed in a secure area (although some clients who feel comfortable with the therapist may opt for a gown).
“The hardest thing is convincing corporations that it’s not just a luxury,” says Fletcher, who cites statistics from the Touch Research Institute at the University of Miami School of Medicine.
“Productivity goes up 40 per cent when this becomes a regular part of their health program,” says Fletcher. “As long as it’s once every couple weeks or once a month.”
Fletcher believes the corporate world will embrace on-site massage. It’s been popular in the U.S for about 10 years, he says, with Apple Computers one of the first major corporations to adopt it.
But, do 15 minute massages work?
“If the technique is proper, you bet it does,” says Sue Fath, secretary of the Massage Therapists Association of Alberta.
