Massage Therapy as a Career Option

March 13, 2009 by  
Filed under Therapeutic Massage

As a career option, massage therapy may be comparatively new. Nevertheless, lots of people are finding massage therapy as an attractive career choice. Massage therapists generally work independently and help in securing the health and fitness of others. If you would like to get massage therapy training, it would do well to get a clear picture of what the idea entails.

- The arena of massage therapy careers is one completely dominated by women. American Massager Therapy Association’s statistics reveal that about 85% of therapists with a massage therapy license are women. Male presence is restricted just to the remaining 15%.

- A massage therapy session can be at a massage parlor, at a spa or a club, at the therapist’s home, or at the patient’s home itself. About 44% of therapists who have a massage therapy license go to wherever the client wishes to have the massage therapy session, while 39% conduct the sessions in their own office. The number of therapists who work in a spa or a salon amount to 22% and the number of those providing massage from a health care clinic to 21%. Then there are others who work together with other massage therapy specialists in an office and their number comes to about 17%. The smallest percentage is those who perform massage therapy in a health club and they come to about 9%.

- The main attraction of massage therapy careers is its flexibility. It can be made a full time occupation or a part time one. The larger percentage of those who conduct massage therapy operations are part timers in that they constitute 62% of all, while the remaining 38% have massage therapy as a full time occupation. A full time career as a massage therapist entails a minimum of 17 hours work per week.

- As a career option massage therapy is not bad. There are enough institutes today for taking massage therapy classes, and in USA alone there are more than 1000 centers that provide massage therapy training. You can train in any one of these schools to become a massage therapist.

- There are three steps to becoming a full-fledged massage therapy professional. First is applying to a proper massage therapy training center. Admission is not likely to be difficult as all that is required for enrolment is a high school degree. After you complete the course, you have to become a nationally certified therapist. To become eligible for full-fledged employment as a massage therapy professional, you have also got to get a massage therapy license or a permit from the state in which you hope to practice.

- People start opting for massage therapy careers at different ages, and age is generally not a bar. The average age of a massage therapist in the American Massage Therapy Association is 44 and their ages range from 35 to 54.

Hope this article was helpful for those looking for massage therapy training and hoping to take massage therapy classes, with the aim of becoming a full time massage therapy professional. Massage therapy careers are not a bad option.