Massage therapists in Encino or Santa Monica?

April 30, 2016 6:17 PM

Can anyone recommend a good massage therapist in the Encino or Santa Monica area? My dad is recovering from surgery and is having a lot of muscle tightness as he is becoming more active.
posted by exceptinsects to Health & Fitness (2 answers total)

I can't provide a specific recommendation, but may have some general advice to get Dad the help he needs. Start at the AMTA's "Find A Massage Therapist" page. AMTA is one of the biggies (maybe the biggie) as far as professional organizations that support massage therapists with continuing ed & other things reputable massage therapists need.

Once you get a few names to work with, check each for online reviews. Online reviews are often a load of BS, or they are real but get filtered out because a new user gave a glowing (or abysmal) review. Point is to just make sure there are no red flags.

Once you've weeded out any obvious rejects you can see if the providers have a website or Facebook page that will give you additional insight. But I have to tell you (as the web wench for a local massage therapist), I've done a fair amount of competitive research in this area and a lot of qualified massage therapists have terrible (or zero) online presence. So this last suggestion may just help you spot some indicators that the person isn't a good fit for your dad's situation.
posted by TerraIncognita at 3:01 AM on May 1, 2016 [1 favorite]

Best massage therapist I ever had was Jason Chase at Healing Academy. http://healingacademy.net/about/
posted by egeanin at 12:55 PM on May 1, 2016