Effleurage, a French word meaning "to skim" or "to touch lightly on", is a series of massage strokes used in

Swedish massage Massage is the manipulation of the body's soft tissues. Massage techniques are commonly applied with hands, fingers, elbows, knees, forearms, feet or a device. The purpose of massage is generally for the treatment of body stress or pain. In Eu ...

to warm up the

muscle Skeletal muscles (commonly referred to as muscles) are organs of the vertebrate muscular system and typically are attached by tendons to bones of a skeleton. The muscle cells of skeletal muscles are much longer than in the other types of muscl ...

before deep tissue work using

petrissage Petrissage () is a massage technique that applies deep pressure to the underlying muscles. Kneading, wringing, skin rolling and pick-up-and-squeeze are the petrissage movements. They are all performed with the padded palmar surface of the hand, ...

. This is a soothing, stroking movement used at the beginning and the end of the facial and/or body massage. It is also used as a linking move between the different strokes and movements. Effleurage is basically a form of massage involving a circular stroking movement made with the palm of the hand. Effleurage can be firm or light without dragging the skin, and is performed using either the padded parts of the finger tips or the palmar surface of the hands. Lotion may or may not be used. The process works as a mechanical pump on the body to encourage venous and lymphatic return by starting at the bottom of the limb and pushing back towards the heart. This will have more success with this once all the muscles in the area are warmed up and loose. It consists of four sub-categories: # Ethereal or aura strokes # Feathering, or nerve-stroking # Superficial effleurage # Deeper effleurage

References

Manual therapy {{treatment-stub

See also

References