Aiming at the problems of the traditional massage robot’〖KG-*2〗s end effector with single function, insufficient flexibility and large shape, based on the parameters of the traditional Chinese medicine massage manipulations, a flexible massage manipulator with the functions of pressing and vibrating manipulations was designed by using pneumatic muscle flexible driver. The palm was an airbag tentacle made of silicone material, which could achieve variable stiffness of the airbag based on the vacuum blocking principle, and the bearing capacity of the palm was improved on the basis of maintaining the soft characteristics. Based on Yeoh hyperelastic constitutive model, the deformation of the airbag with different wall thicknesses was simulated and analyzed and the parameters were determined. The variable stiffness performance of the palm air bag was tested through compression stiffness and manual force measurement experiments, the relationship between the manipulation force and the air pressure was obtained, and the reasonable range of the air pressure was determined, which provided reference for practical application.