My 3 Favorite Tennis Ball Stretches

Struggling with sore muscles? Foam rollers help, but have you tried a tennis ball? Yup, there are a ton of self-massage exercises you can do for myofascial release with nothing more than a good ol’ fashioned neon yellow ball.

These exercises will help you stimulate blood flow and buff waste away from tight muscles, which loosens you up and and leaves you feeling relaxed. Just don’t expect the process to be painless. When you dig into your muscles with a tennis ball, you can isolate knots that you might not otherwise target. This has a “hurts so good” sensation that can get pretty intense.

To make the process easier, make sure you’re targeting soft muscle tissue — not bones or joints. If you find a spot that hurts, move slowly, allow your body to carefully roll back and forth across the adhesion to help loosen things up and understand the power of gravity: The more body weight you use, the deeper you’ll dig and the more it’ll hurt. Lift your weight slightly away from the ball during intense moments. The goal is to loosen up tight spots, not end up bruised.

1. Neck

If you’re prone to tension headaches, or if you find your neck getting tight after a long day in front of a computer, take a few minutes to ease the pain with a tennis ball. Simply lie on the ground and place a tennis ball behind your neck, just to the right of your spine and under your skull. Sink into the tennis ball and roll your head slightly to the left and right, avoiding your bony bits. If you find a tight spot, stop and hold your position for 30 seconds before continuing. Switch sides after a minute or two.

3. Upper, mid and lower back

You can use one tennis ball or two to target the muscles that run along your spine and into your sacroiliac joint (your pelvis). By using two tennis balls, you can target both sides of your spine at once. To keep the balls in place, put them in a tube sock and tie a knot between the balls to prevent yourself from rolling the ball over your backbone. Place the knot along your spine, so the two tennis balls are on either side. Use gravity to target tight areas, rolling very slowly to loosen things up.

5. Hips

I see alot of people that have been sitting many hours working and now have troubles with their hips, particularly of the hip flexors (the iliopsoas) and the muscles responsible for external rotation and abduction, including the deep muscles of the glutes. As always, make sure you don’t roll the tennis ball directly on any bones — rather, aim for the soft muscle tissue at the front and around the sides of your hips. This is one of my personal favorites.

 Enjoy the stretches

Nancy

mcshane.massagetherapy.com 

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