For many professional massage therapists and bodyworkers, the education necessary to attain one’s license to practice may be focused mainly on the relaxation-based benefits of manual therapy. This can be a wonderful foundation for entering the field and may be all that is necessary if the practitioner’s goal is to secure a position with a resort or spa that provides hands-on sessions that center on relaxation. However, for those massage therapists and bodyworkers who are interested in providing pain relief for their clients, it is usually necessary to pursue continuing education on topics such as orthopedic massage, medical massage and sports massage. Fortunately, it is now possible to gain advanced skills in orthopedic massage online, which means busy practitioners can continue to work while at the same time pursuing the skills they need to move their careers in the rewarding direction of manual therapy for pain management.

Whether you are looking to secure a basic foundation in massage therapy for pain management or seeking to advance an already established skill set in orthopedic massage, continuing education courses from Erik Dalton offer a top-quality path toward your goals. Dalton, who began his career as a Certified Rolfer© in the early 1980s, is the creator of the popular pain-management modality known as Myoskeletal Alignment Techniques, or MAT. MAT was developed out of Dalton’s desire to better serve his clients with chronic pain by using not only structural integration, but also deep tissue massage and joint mobilization techniques inspired by solid research in fields such as osteopathic medicine. Based on the reflexogenic relationship of muscles, ligaments and joints, MAT focuses on the muscles and fascia, as well as spinal biomechanics. Dalton has been teaching his signature modality since 1998, which was when he released one of the massage industry’s first nationally approved home-study courses, called “Myoskeletal Alignment Techniques (MAT).”

A Quality Education in Orthopedic Massage Online

Given the vast array of continuing education programs available to today’s manual therapists, it is crucial to differentiate between top-quality orthopedic massage online training and low-quality courses that may offer continuing education credits, but offer little of value when it comes to actual skills. Fortunately, Dalton is a well-known and respected figure in the realm of continuing education for professional massage therapists, bodyworkers, athletic trainers and others who are interested in pain management via manual therapy. He is the author of three best-selling manual therapy textbooks and the creator of a rich catalog of tried-and-true continuing education home-study courses, live workshops and online classes. Based on Dalton’s rock-solid reputation as an innovator and educator, prospective students can count on his CE programs to deliver an immediate increase in knowledge, skills and client satisfaction.

However, manual therapists can base their decision to train with Dalton on more than his reputation. With the availability of a wide variety of YouTube video clips pulled from various MAT continuing education programs, it is free and easy to get a quick glimpse into this pain-management modality and its creator’s popular teaching style. For example, one clip shows Dalton instructing his viewers on the topic of joint stretching for tennis elbow, also known as lateral epicondylalgia. The ability to effectively address tennis elbow via MAT orthopedic massage is just one of the many specific, valuable skills manual therapists can learn through Dalton’s continuing education programs. For clients who are involved in sports or occupations that require repetitive lifting and gripping, forceful arm movements or recurrent vibration, there’s a risk of damaging the elbow’s extensor tendons and degrading the joint’s articular cartilage, which, in turn, can lead to the pain associated with tennis elbow.

Orthopedic Massage Online Training for Tennis Elbow

In order to gain the effective skills necessary to help clients with tennis elbow, along with other issues that affect the upper region of the body, take a look at Dalton’s myoskeletal e-learning continuing education program called “Techniques for Shoulder, Arm & Hand.” This orthopedic massage online training program not only teaches manual therapists to assess and address elbow disorders such as lateral epicondylalgia, but also thoracic outlet syndrome, shoulder girdle fixations, rotator cuff impingement and much more. To purchase or learn more about this and other Dalton e-learning programs, visit www.erikdalton.com.

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