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	<title>Save Your Hands!® Injury Prevention &#38; Ergonomics for Manual Therapists</title>
	<link>http://massagemag.com/massage-blog/injury-prevention-ergonomics-manual-therapists</link>
	<description>Learn to protect and prolong your massage career.</description>
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		<title>R &amp; R</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I saw an interesting on-line video recently. There’s a link to at the end of this blog. (It’s a 30-minute video, so I want to give you a little preview of it so you can decide if you’re interested in watching it or not.) The speaker in the video is presenting to an audience of [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://massagemag.com/massage-blog/injury-prevention-ergonomics-manual-therapists/2012/01/16/r-r/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>10 Ways that Learning about Self-Care Can Make You a Better Therapist</title>
		<description><![CDATA[If you&#8217;ve been reading this blog for even a short while, you&#8217;ve learned the importance of self-care and injury prevention to your career longevity.  But did you ever think about how learning about this subject could actually make you a better therapist?  Here are 10 ways this can happen: Understanding the risk factors for work-related [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://massagemag.com/massage-blog/injury-prevention-ergonomics-manual-therapists/2011/12/26/10-ways-that-learning-about-self-care-can-make-you-a-better-therapist/</link>
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		<title>Static loading, saltwater taffy, and tractioning</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Static loading, saltwater taffy, and tractioning: What could these three things possibly have to do with each other? I promise to tie them all together by the end of this blog post. Static loading occurs when you hold an isometric muscle contraction. One example from massage work would be tractioning a client’s leg by grasping [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://massagemag.com/massage-blog/injury-prevention-ergonomics-manual-therapists/2011/12/24/static-loading-saltwater-taffy-and-tractioning/</link>
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		<title>The (potentially) most hazardous exposure in the massage profession</title>
		<description><![CDATA[You might think that, as one of the Save Your Hands bloggers, I would identify the repetitive motions of massage as the most significant injury risk that therapists face. But I think that the greatest hazard comes from a much less frequent, but potentially more injurious exposure, one that could cause injury even with a [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://massagemag.com/massage-blog/injury-prevention-ergonomics-manual-therapists/2011/11/25/the-potentially-most-hazardous-exposure-in-the-massage-profession/</link>
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		<title>Knuckles, Forearms . . .Which Body Part is Best to Use to Do Massage?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[It&#8217;s great that therapists are trying new ways to do massage.  In online forums and social media, we see therapists talking about, for example, how using the knuckles instead of the fingertips is the most risk-free way to do massage.  Another swears by the forearms, and yet another by avoiding the upper extremity altogether and [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://massagemag.com/massage-blog/injury-prevention-ergonomics-manual-therapists/2011/10/24/knuckles-forearms-which-body-part-is-best-to-use-to-do-massage/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Why You Can (and Should) Stop Doing Sit-Ups</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Do you hate doing sit-ups or crunches? Then I have some good news for you. According to Stuart McGill, a professor of spine biomechanics at the University of Waterloo, you shouldn&#8217;t be doing them because they can be bad for your back. Sit-up and crunches create a lot of compressive force on the intervertebral discs [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://massagemag.com/massage-blog/injury-prevention-ergonomics-manual-therapists/2011/10/15/why-you-can-and-should-stop-doing-sit-ups/</link>
			</item>
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		<title>10 Great Ways to Increase Your Energy</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Fatigue is a risk factor for injury, so it&#8217;s important to avoid working to the point of fatigue.  You&#8217;ll need to adjust your ergonomics and body mechanics to avoid fatigue, but you&#8217;ll also need to develop awareness of when you start to feel fatigued or your energy level is low.  When you notice that your [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://massagemag.com/massage-blog/injury-prevention-ergonomics-manual-therapists/2011/09/30/10-great-ways-to-increase-your-energy/</link>
			</item>
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		<title>Thumbstitute</title>
		<description><![CDATA[This may be a new word for most of you: Thumbstitute. OK, it&#8217;s a silly word, but it&#8217;s an important concept for massage therapists. Finding something other than your thumbs to perform your work just might prevent an injury down the road. Thumbs are one of the most frequently injured parts of a therapist&#8217;s body, [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://massagemag.com/massage-blog/injury-prevention-ergonomics-manual-therapists/2011/08/29/thumbstitute/</link>
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		<title>Exercise Smart to Save Your Hands</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Maintaining good physical conditioning is very important as part of your personal injury prevention strategy. Strengthening exercises and stretches should be part of your conditioning program, but not all exercises and stretches are appropriate for massage therapists to do. For most massage therapists, the hands and arms are overtaxed by their work. So as a [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://massagemag.com/massage-blog/injury-prevention-ergonomics-manual-therapists/2011/08/22/exercise-smart-save-your-hands/</link>
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		<title>Neutral Neck Posture (?)</title>
		<description><![CDATA[There is no such thing as neutral posture for the neck. There, I said it. After years of joining ergonomists, physical therapists and others in describing neutral neck posture, I’ve decided it doesn’t really exist. If we look at the concepts of neutral posture perhaps you’ll see why I’ve come to believe this. One of [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://massagemag.com/massage-blog/injury-prevention-ergonomics-manual-therapists/2011/07/30/neutral-neck-posture/</link>
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