Trail Guide to the Body…
If you have this book then you know it is a fantastic guide for massage practitioners (or physical therapists, athletic trainers, or anyone who works with soft tissues). It is one of the best guides for developing palpation skills and learning detailed information about the structure and movement of the body. I find useful for for educating clients about their bodies, why I am going to work on a certain area, and the general benefits of therapeutic massage. These days I find myself using my iPad more and more for client education. Do you?
The other day Allissa Haines’ (from Writing a Blue Streak) mentioned on Facebook that she pulled out her Trail Guide to the Body book. Somebody was kind enough to mentioned there was now an app for the guide available on iTunes. It appears it was released in May.
Here is the link for a free “lite” version of this app (limited functions). It is a great way to check it out to see if you like it before spending $39.00 on the full version.
And the link to the full version ($39 .00). It costs less than the Trail Guide to the Body
What you think of the app? How do you use this guide or app in your practice?
Happy app-ing
Great Recommendation! I’ve used this reference book since I graduated massage school!
I have been using this book for years. I will bring it out if I want to check the origin, insertion, or action of the muscle. I haven’t switched to the app yet, but clients appreciate it when I bring the book out so that they can reference and learn as well.
ooops, linked the muscles on, but check that one out, and if curious get the free Visual Anatomy one either on google play or amazon … as for ipad, im sure they have a version for that, im frugal, i dont own I-anythings lol https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hssn.anatomyfree
Hello, stumbled upon your blog, enjoying it a lot, saw this post and just wanted to share that while I used trail guide in school and it would be a nice app to have, i am a struggling massage therapist always looking for a good deal, free is awesome, but inexpensive works for me as well… I found a free app called Visual Anatomy and fell in love with it, it had most of the basic muscles as well as anatomy and even a quiz, one day amazon was so kind as to give me $3 toward the purchase of an app and right away I knew I had to have Visual Muscles 3D, which is $2.99 for the full version. I love it, and there are many quizzes to chose from as well as being able to isolate one muscle or view all of them, rotate, 3D … I highly suggest you check out the Visual Anatomy Free first and then see for yourself 🙂 https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hssn.muscle
thank you! gonna check this out!
I loved that book when I was studying massage. I think it would have been even easier to learn it if I had an ipad or the app back then. But this is definitely good news for current students
The one thing I use for client education all the time is my spine model… otherwise my own body in demonstrating what’s where, where it goes, where it pulls etc.
Something else I do in between sessions is that I follow up by email, and send them links to my videos on YouTube for their homework or stretches they asked about. Somehow having the video and the explanation while they’re doing the exercise makes it stick better than the usual handouts I used to give.
I was enamored with graphics and anatomical guides in the beginning of my career, now I find there are so many other things I have to share that there’s just no time to fiddle with a tablet.