If I press my RF/ultrasound handpiece hard on the skin, will it make treatment deeper?

“Pressing down the applicator on the skin does not usually result in deeper treatment and it is unnecessarily exhausting for the therapist. Finally, depth should be medium deep, not as deep as possible.

Therefore, treatment depth is better adjusted with settings / choice of equipment and after studying the different tissues and their skin depths.”

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• Will pressing the ultrasound / radiofrequency applicator against the client’s skin ensure that treatment is deep?

• Pressing the down hard with bipolar RF

• Pressing the RF handpiece hard with monopolar RF

• Pressing down with the ultrasound applicator

• Deep massage does not help with cellulite or skin tightening

• Learn how to provide deeper treatment, properly

Will pressing the ultrasound / radiofrequency applicator against the client’s skin ensure that treatment is deep?

Many therapists have the habit of pressing hard with the handpiece on the client’s skin in order to offer a deeper treatment. But does that make sense? Does treatment get deeper?

The answer is maybe, depending on the equipment used, but this is not a valid or even safe way to provide deep treatment.

First off, the constant pressure is not good for the therapist. It makes treatment straining and given enough such treatments can lead to wrist, elbow and shoulder overuse injury.

Secondly, pressing with the applicator is not a valid massage method. It’s not relaxing and as applicators are made of had material, it is quite harsh on the client.

And now let move into whether treatment is deeper is pressure on the RF/ultrasound applicator on the skin is high.

Pressing the down hard with bipolar RF

If you use bipolar RF treatment will not be much deeper.

This is because a large percentage of the current passes from pole (+) to pole (-) on the surface of the skin and there is not much you can do about this - regardless of what manufacturers claim.

It’s simple physics: the current will always try to find the shortest easiest way from (+) to (-). Sure, the remaining current will go a bit deeper through the skin but the majority will be superficial, no matter how much you torture your client with the pressure.

Plus you cannot control the exact depth just by pressing. You may even go too deep, i.e. work on the subcutaneous fat, which is inefficient and pointless.

Pressing the RF handpiece hard with monopolar RF

If you use monopolar RF then indeed treatment will be somewhat deeper but not that much deeper, as depth will mainly depend on RF frequency and whether your RF machine is resistive or capacitive.

Capacitive treatment means a lot of the current is consumed on the surface of the skin and it doesn’t matter how much you press.

On the other hand, lower frequency resistive treatment is usually too deep, so pressing more will make treatment even deeper - not very smart.

Finally, if you use a higher frequency resistive RF, treatment is usually just about right, so you don’t need to press hard, anyway.

Again, in all cases, pressing down means therapist exhaustion in the short term and therapist injury in the long run. Plus it may also mean that treatment is simply too deep.

Pressing down with the ultrasound applicator

Ultrasound is much more straightforward than RF and the more you press the deeper you go. However, as mentioned above, this technique also has the problems of therapist exhaustion/injury plus you cannot control depth. if you go too deep and reach the subcutaneous fat then treatment will simply be pointless.

Deep massage does not help with cellulite or skin tightening

Pressing down hard with the handpiece is akin to a very bad deep tissue massage that, by definition, acts on the muscles.

Indeed, deep tissue massage does not work AT ALL with either cellulite or skin tightening.

Sure, it boosts circulation in the muscles. But we do not aim to treat the muscles with RF/ultrasound, are we? Our clients come for skin tightening / cellulite reduction.

On the other hand, the skin itself gets more than enough circulation boost by the actual RF/ultrasound treatment without any pressure applied. So again, pressing down with the handpiece is pointless.

Learn how to provide deeper treatment, properly

Depending on equipment used, treatment can be controlled with the settings on the equipment.

But before we even look to make treatment deeper we should understand:

• on which tissues treatment should be applied in the first place

• why we should treat those tissues

• and where those tissues are located inside the skin

Pressing randomly deep with the handpiece is like shooting in the dark and an exhausting, uncomfortable waste of time and energy.

And no, as mentioned above, it is not good massage either.

Now you can get instant access to this expertise and save yourself literally thousands of $$$/£££ of expensive mistakes and thousands of hours of study, research and practical application by attending one of our 1-day or 2-day or 3-day professional consultancy / training courses.

Understand radiofrequency, ultrasound cavitation, cellulite and skin tightening deeply and confidently offer your clients the safest, strongest and most effective treatment possible.

Service available via Zoom or at our central London practice.

Georgios Tzenichristos,
LipoTherapeia