Plymouth College Massage Program Offers Free Massage

Eight-and-a-half months pregnant with her first child last February, Jill Rodberg went to the Minnesota School of Business-Plymouth campus for a prenatal massage.

The school’s massage therapy program runs a clinic that offers free massages to about 50 clients a week.

Rodberg said her student massage therapists seemed somewhat inexperienced.

“You could tell she was kind of hesitant, but that she was very professional," Rodberg said. “She explained everything she was doing during the session.”

The Plymouth campus for the Minnesota School of Business opened in 2002 said Regina Hughes, the massage program chair.

In 2003, the massage clinic arose out of the school’s desire to helps students “refine their skills in a safe environment” and “work on interpersonal skills," Hughes said.

“They get an opportunity to work on many different body types and people with different health conditions as opposed to just operating on each other,” she said.

The school enrolls about 40 students at a time during the one-year massage therapy program and offers classes in deep-tissue, hot stone, sport, lymph, prenatal and Thai massage.

During most academic quarters, some classes include a clinical component where students answer a telephone hotline and book free massages with clients on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Near the end of each quarter, students can see as many as 80 clients a week.

The school makes 14 tables available to students for 60, 75 or 90-minute massages. Teachers are on site to answer student and client questions.

“The students have the safety net of having the instructor with them if anything comes up,” Hughes said. "The massages would cost about a dollar a minute at credentialed clinics."

After their massage, clients fill out an evaluation that asks questions such as, “Did the student behave on a professional level?” “Were you kept comfortable?” and “How effective was the massage?”

In the last decade, the school has put an increased emphasis on massage as healthcare and less emphasis on massage as a spa treatment. Anatomy and pathology courses have been added to the curriculum and attention has been paid to how massage works as rehab.

Massages can be scheduled beginning again in the fall semester by calling the hotline at 763-398-5980.

(Corrections and clarifications have been made to this story since it was first posted.)