Style finder
Most disappointing massages are booking errors, not therapist errors. Someone wanting to switch off books deep tissue because it sounds serious, and someone with a specific shoulder problem books a full-body relaxation massage and gets four minutes on the shoulder. Answer six questions and this will tell you what to ask for and how to phrase it.
Deep does not mean better. It means a different job, and the wrong one for most goals on this page.
Several excellent modalities are done fully clothed. Nobody should end up dreading an appointment they paid for.
None of this leaves your browser. It changes what the tool recommends, because these genuinely change what is safe.
Long gliding strokes, kneading and light stretching over the whole body. The default spa massage and the right starting point if you have never had one.
Say this when you book:
“A 60 or 90 minute Swedish massage, medium pressure, mostly relaxation.”
Hot stone massage. Heated stones used as tools and left on the body to warm tissue before hands-on work. Excellent for cold, guarded muscles; not the choice if you want detailed corrective work.
Shiatsu. Rhythmic thumb and palm pressure along the body's meridian lines, done clothed, usually on a mat. Structured and calming rather than muscular.
Not every studio offers every modality, and a therapist trained in the thing you asked for beats the perfect modality delivered by somebody who does it occasionally.
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Each answer adds or subtracts weight across twelve modalities rather than looking up a canned result, so changing one answer moves the recommendation by a sensible amount. Health flags are handled separately and before the scoring, because pregnancy, anticoagulants and cancer treatment change what is appropriate at all rather than nudging a preference.
It has never met you, cannot examine anything, and does not know your history. It is a booking aid, not a clinical assessment. If you have pain that is new, severe, spreading, worse at night, or comes with numbness, weakness or unexplained weight loss, that is a doctor's appointment first and a massage afterwards.