A barber working on a seated client with both arms raised to head height.

Schouder — shoulder, neck and arm

Nobody is built to hold their arms at head height for eight hours.

We see hairdressers, barbers, dental hygienists, painters and tilers — the trades that work above the heart. The complaint is nearly always the same one. The shoulder is fine in the morning, gone by two, and back again at three in the night.

This is not a spa and there are no packages. A session is forty minutes. Most people need between three and eight of them. If you are better after two we stop at two, and if eight have changed nothing we say so and write to your doctor.

What a first session costs

What we treat

The chair

For the trades that stand: hairdressers, barbers, dental hygienists, painters. We work first on the small muscles that hold the arm up, then on the large ones that were supposed to and stopped. You keep working through it — nobody can shut a salon for six weeks.

The table

For the trades that sit and reach: sewing, assembly, tattooing, driving. Other muscles, same cause — the arm goes out in front and never comes back. The session is shorter and the homework is longer.

The changeover

For anyone who has just changed something: a new chair, a new bench height, night shifts, a different machine. This is the cheapest thing we do and the one that works best, because nothing has set yet.

Two hands working along the muscles beside a shoulder blade.
Scissors, clippers, a comb and a dryer laid out on a dark mat.

The room is on the first floor above a working salon, so it is never quiet and it does not smell of lavender.

There is a lift, a bench for whoever came with you, and a kettle.

Where

12 Werfstraat
Rotterdam

A practitioner leaning over a client lying on a treatment table.
Someone doing a floor exercise on a mat beside a window.

How it goes

You come in at the height you actually work at. We measure it, we film thirty seconds of you cutting, and after that we never mention posture again.

What it costs

Forty minutes is €68. The first is €85, because the measuring is in it. No package, no subscription, no card to stamp.

Ask for a time

Before you come

Bring the tool
The scissors, the clippers or the roller you use most. We work on the shoulder that holds it and the weight matters more than anyone expects.
What we do not do
We do not inject, we do not manipulate the neck, and we do not treat a shoulder that has been operated on within the year.
Waiting
Two to three weeks. There is no urgent list. A shoulder that has been wrong for four years can wait a fortnight.
Cancelling
Free until the day before. On the day itself we charge half, because the hour is gone either way.
Insurance
We hold no contracts. You pay us, and you claim it back yourself or you do not. We will not pretend to know which.
When we stop
After eight sessions with no change we write to your doctor and stop. That letter costs nothing and it is yours to take anywhere.
A barber working with both hands raised beside a client's head. A stylist reaching over a client lying back at a salon basin. A group class moving together in a wooden-floored hall.

Most of it is the first ten centimetres.

The arm does not fail at the top of the reach. It fails where the reach starts, at the shoulder blade, before the hand has gone anywhere at all. That is where we begin, and it is why the first session feels as though it is about the wrong place.

A pair of hands working clippers close to the side of a head.

Schouder

12 Werfstraat
Rotterdam

Tuesday to Saturday
08:00 — 15:00

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Schouder is a fictional example. The practice, the address, the prices and the opening times do not exist. Photographs are stock images and do not show this room or these clients.