If you’re treated to a day at the spa, you have a choice of treatments and massages. You might see mention of a table shower and wonder what does a table shower mean. This is usually performed after a messy mud bath or an essential oil rubdown.

How it Works

You lie on a table. Above you is a rod holding between three and seven showerheads. The showerheads are positioned, then the water is turned on. Table showers use both pressure and temperature to gain a reaction from the body. Temperature is used to get the blood circulating. Cold makes things recede. Heat makes them expand. In this case, cold water sends the blood into the recesses of the body where the organs are located. Hot water brings the blood up toward the skin, where the muscles can receive it.

You’ve adjusted your shower head at home from a gentle spray to a pummeling massage. It’s the same in a table shower. The showerheads are adjusted to massage the necessary muscles, while the rest get a gentler shower.

History

Besides wondering what does a table shower mean, you might also wonder how long such a charming method of massage has existed. Would you believe Julius Caesar was the first to use it? He had just made Gaul (modern-day France) another Roman serfdom when he discovered their hot springs. His horse had drunk of the waters and been revived from a long, hard march. When Caesar saw that, he immediately built a spa around the springs.

Often called a Vichy shower for the area of France originating the hot springs, such healing waters were once the purview of the rich and aristocratic. Their diseases and illnesses such as gout, paralysis, arthritis, digestive upsets, and rheumatism were thought to be cured by the Vichy waters. Just imagine, then, what a table shower can do for you!