Why Top Massage Therapists Treat Their Own Bodies Like Clients — Lessons from Taras Sheremeta

Taras Sheremeta, owner of Fliks Balance & Wellness LLC and creator of the Sheremeta Self-Stretching Method, on physical burnout, biomechanics and what massage therapists get wrong about protecting their own bodies

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects an 18% employment increase for massage therapists between 2023 and 2033 — far above the national average, according to the Occupational Outlook Handbook. Yet roughly 22,800 positions need to be filled each year, many of them replacements for therapists who quit. The reason is rarely lack of demand. It is what the profession does to the practitioner’s body. The therapists who stay in the field for the long run share an unusual habit: they treat their own physiology with the same clinical attention they apply to clients.

Taras Sheremeta, a licensed massage therapist in Niles, Illinois, has spent over a decade building his practice around exactly that principle. Owner of Fliks Balance & Wellness LLC and creator of the Sheremeta Self-Stretching Method (SSM) — now used by more than 30 practitioners — he combines a clinical caseload of athletes, chronic-pain patients, and pregnancy and geriatric clients with an active competitive career. In April 2026 alone, he took first place in sports massage at the Pennsylvania Championship and three medals at the North Carolina Championship, following an overall first place at the IL&WI United Massage Championship in October 2025. He also serves as a peer reviewer for Futurity Medicine Journal and Global Prosperity Journal, and presented research on myofascial therapy at the 3rd International Scientific and Practical Conference in Hamburg this year. We asked what it actually takes to sustain a long career in bodywork.

Taras, the BLS notes that massage therapy is physically demanding enough that many practitioners cannot work a standard eight-hour day. You competed in championships in Indiana, Utah, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina within the past year, taking first place overall at the IL&WI United Massage Championship in October 2025. How do you manage that level of physical output without breaking down?

By treating my own body the way I treat clients with a plan, not an afterthought. Before every competition, I build a preparation routine around controlled self-stretching that targets forearms, shoulders, lower back. Most therapists warm up their hands and assume the rest will follow. It does not. A competition round can run forty-five minutes of sustained pressure and precise movement. If your shoulder mechanics are off by the second round, technique degrades and the judges see it.

Before massage therapy, you studied chemistry with a focus on biochemistry after graduating from a medical lyceum. How did that training shape your clinical thinking?

Chemistry taught me to see the body as a system of reactions, not just a collection of sore muscles. When a client comes in with chronic lower-back pain, I am not only thinking about which tissue feels tight, I am considering inflammation pathways, how long the problem has been compounding, what postural habits feed into it. Biomechanics represented the bridge between these domains, providing insight into how physical movement occurs and identifying why dysfunction arises when those movement patterns fail.

Tell us about the Sheremeta Self-Stretching Method, or SSM. More than 30 practitioners currently use it, including about 15 licensed therapists in the United States. What does the method actually involve?

SSM integrates controlled self-stretching directly into active treatment. Instead of pausing a session to rest, the therapist performs specific movements during treatment itself, resetting posture and muscle tension without interrupting the client’s experience. In practice, it helps maintain consistent pressure, reduces fatigue, and lowers the risk of repetitive-strain injuries. The development of this method wasn’t a theoretical exercise. Rather, it emerged from years of observation, identifying the precise ergonomic corrections that allowed me to remain effective throughout a six-hour workday instead of ending it in a state of physical exhaustion.

The BLS specifically flags repetitive-motion problems and fatigue as common risks in this profession. How bad is the problem among your colleagues?

The physical toll on massage practitioners is significantly worse than most clients realize, often manifesting as debilitating issues in the thumbs, wrists, shoulders, and lower back, which are typically the first areas to give out. I have personally witnessed talented colleagues forced to abandon the profession in their early thirties because their hands simply could no longer withstand the repetitive load. This risk is particularly acute for therapists specializing in deep tissue or myofascial work, as they absorb substantially more force per session compared to those providing relaxation massage. Despite these realities, students are rarely warned in school that a career might span only five years unless they proactively learn to protect their own physiological structure through rigorous biomechanical awareness.

Apart from clinical practice, you serve as a peer reviewer for Futurity Medicine Journal and Global Prosperity Journal. At the 3rd International Scientific and Practical Conference in Hamburg in 2026, you presented a paper on myofascial therapy for chronic pain in athletes. What draws you to academic work?

A personal frustration. Much of what circulates in massage therapy is anecdotal – someone tries a technique, it seems to work, and it spreads through workshops without anyone asking whether the results hold up across populations. Peer review forces rigor. My own conference paper came from seeing athletes respond to myofascial treatment in patterns that matched certain pain models and wanting to document that properly rather than describe it informally.

Your client base spans athletes, people with chronic pain, pregnant women, and geriatric patients. How do you adjust across such different populations?

Every session starts from the same principle, long-term functional improvement rather than short-term comfort, but execution differs completely. An athlete recovering from a hamstring strain tolerates deep, targeted pressure. A pregnant client in her third trimester needs positioning adjustments and lighter technique. Geriatric clients arrive with conditions that limit range of motion in ways a younger body does not experience. What stays constant is the biomechanical thinking: where compensatory patterns have developed and which interventions will produce lasting change.

You earned the Quality Mark Business Excellence award in May 2025, and your income ranks in the top 10% of the field. Plans include pursuing NCBTMB provider certification and expanding SSM training nationally. Where does this go from here?

Two directions at once. Clinically, I want to keep working with populations that need the most careful care, people with health-related limitations, and eventually children under twelve, which requires additional training. On the methodology side, getting SSM into a structured national certification program would let therapists learn it in a way that sticks, not a weekend workshop they forget by Monday. I also want to see massage championships gain traction in states like Illinois, where competitive events remain underrepresented. A profession that loses half its workforce to burnout could use every tool that keeps people engaged.