Tennis Ball Self Massage

Your Guide to Increasing Mobility While Reducing Muscle & Joint Pain At Home

The tennis ball assists us with myo-fascial self relief, similar to a foam roller.

Hold each trigger point for 30 seconds at a time before releasing and re-assessing

When rolling to find your next trigger point roll the balls slowly and carefully, don’t rush

The pain is more intense upon locating a new trigger point, the longer you hold (3o seconds) the more the pain will most likely lessen.

Trigger point therapy is by no means limited to the tennis ball but…the use of a golf or lacrosse ball brings with it increase chance of injury (that may be permanent) so I always recommend a wider diameter ball with more give hence a tennis ball can be a very safe.

Upper Body Areas

Shoulders

Depending on the degree of your shoulder pain/tightness I recommend trying the 2 different methods for hitting the deltoids:

  1. Start off standing side on against a wall – place the tennis ball on your deltoid (upper arm) and roll slightly from side to side to hone in on any trigger points.

  2. Provided the above method was not already too sore it’s time to move on to the floor, Lay on your side with the tennis ball between your shoulder and the floor – roll around like you did on the wall to hone in and apply pressure to any apparent trigger points (you’ll be applying a lot more pressure utilizing this method).

Latisimuss Dorsi

Your lats attach to your shoulder blades (scapula) – excessive tightness in your lats can lead to impingement and various imbalances in the shoulder.
If you want to avoid any potential shoulder issues I recommend taking care of your lats.

There’s 2 ways to hit this trigger point successfully, they include:

  1. Laying on your side with the tennis ball underneath your arm pit while your arm is rotated outwards.

  2. With your tennis ball between your back and a wall, with the ball located below your shoulder blades.

Rotator Cuff Aka. Teres Minor & Infraspitanus

 Trigger points, soreness and injury to these 2 rotator cuff muscles.

There’s 2 ways to hit these trigger point successfully, they include:

– Laying on your side with your elbow at a 90 degree angle.
– With your tennis ball between your back and a wall, with the ball located just outside of your shoulder blade.

This is without a doubt the most painful pressure point for me!

Neck/Shoulders Aka. Trapezius

Tightness in the traps results in an increase in the risk of shoulder and neck pain – make sure you’re releasing pressure from your trapezius muscles regularly.

Once again, you can hit the trapezius via 2 methods, wall or floor.

  1. Lay on the floor with your tennis ball perched in one of the two bulges on the side of your neck – have your knees bent while you do so in order to move around slightly to apply more pressure/hone in from a slightly different angle.

  2. 2. Repeat for other side of trapezius muscle

Chest Aka. Pecs Minor & Major

Rounding your shoulders constantly from tasks like sitting at an office desk can result in tight pectorial muscles – this tightness can cause rounded forward shoulders, causing shoulder pain.

1. Lay on the floor with your tennis ball propped under your chest, roll around on the tennis ball to locate your trigger points and tight spots.


2. I’ve seen other people advocate doing this one against a wall too, however I’ve never been able to get the same pressure or hone in on each spot as well, so I personally recommend sticking with strictly ground game for this one.

Back Aka. Levator Scapula

 Poor posture = sore levator scapula. In order to hit the levator scapula properly you’re going to need to utilize a wall:

1. Place your tennis ball in the top corner of your shoulder blade – using small movements roll around the tennis ball until you hone in on the spot – trust me you’ll know when you find it.

2. Want to hit it even harder? Raise your arm to take advantage of a full range of motion while rolling out the levator scapula.

Hands

Squeeze: Grasping the tennis ball in the middle of your hand, squeeze and hold for a count of 5.
Release and repeat.

The Roll: Utilizing a table top – place the ball on the table and roll your palm repeatedly over the ball.
Focus on both circular motions as well as up and down.

Massage: Holding your tennis ball in one hand massage your other wrist by moving the tennis ball in a circulation motion along the tendon of your wrist.

Finger Stretch: Stand up while placing your hand flat on a bench top. Place your tennis ball under one finger at a time, stretch each finger for 5 – 10 seconds, by doing so you’ll be stretching out the tendons which run from your fingers and through your wrists.

Common Places on the Lower Body

IT Band

I can almost guarantee you that your ITB will have a number of sore pressure points.. I recommend foam rolling up and down your entire ITB with a traditional foam roller, however you will find a number of trigger points on the upper portion of your ITB.

Place your tennis ball on the ground and lay sideways – roll directly from your knee all the way up to your hip – this is where you’ll find the majority of your trigger points as mentioned. If you’ve never stretched your ITB before I do recommend starting off with a light foam roller as jumping straight into tennis ball self massage on the ITB is extremely painful.

TFL

If you spend a large amount of time sitting down each day (which shortens the TFL) you will find it to be quite tight.

Once again. lay side on with the tennis ball on the floor. You’ll find your TFL between your hip bone and your ITB.
Roll around until you find your trigger point, then hold for 30 seconds.

Calves

Your calves, comprised of the gastrocnemius and soleus are more than likely to have several trigger points.

In order to release the pressure from these trigger points:

Raise yourself up on your side with the tennis ball on the side of your calves, just underneath your knee.
Roll from your knee down to your Achilles tendon, stopping and holding on any trigger points you locate along the way.
Due to the width of your calves you may need to roll up and down in several different ‘tracks’ to cover all areas.

Glutes

Once again lay side on with the tennis ball on the floor. You’ll find the main trigger point for your glutes to be slightly further back (posterior) in relation to your TFL.

Hip rotators Aka. Piriformis

The piriformis is a small hip rotator muscle that seems to cause people a lot of big problems.

The easiest way to hit the piriformis’ trigger points is to essentially sit on the tennis ball until you locate the trigger point, it won’t take you long to find it.
It’s worth mentioning that you may get a shooting pain down your leg upon applying pressure to this trigger point – this is completely normal so just grit your teeth and bare it.

Too much to handle? Straighten your leg to reduce the amount of stretch in the hip rotators.

Peroneals

 Tight peroneals can lead to knee pain, so I highly recommend loosening them up with your tennis ball too.

In order to target your peroneals lay down on your side with the tennis ball on the outer side of your leg, just below the knee.
Stop and hold for 30 seconds once you’ve located a pressure point before moving on.

Foot

 Although the foot doesn’t actually have any specific trigger points, applying pressure with your tennis ball is a great way to loosen up the fascia and increase mobility.

Place your foot on top of your tennis ball and roll the tennis ball around all areas of your foot while applying as much pressure to the targeted leg as possible.
Roll each foot for 30 seconds, as I mentioned since there’s no specific trigger points just continue to move the tennis ball for the duration.

 Sore _______ what now?

I recommend releasing all of the above trigger points with your tennis ball regularly, however here’s a bit of a ‘cheat sheet’ so to speak in order to target specific areas:

If you’ve injured your neck focus on releasing pressure from your trapezius.

If you’ve injured your shoulders focus on releasing pressure from your trapezius, deltoids,  pecs. rotator cuffs and scapula.

If you’ve injured your back focus on tennis ball self massage with your glutes, TFL, hip rotators

If you’ve injured your hip focus on releasing pressure from your glutes, TFL, hip rotators.

If you’ve injured your chest focus on releasing pressure from your pecs and deltoids.

If you’ve injured your knee focus on releasing pressure from your glutes, TFL, calves

You don’t need to fork out a lot of money on therapy devices you will only leave in a box later. Live better by staying as pain free as possible and mobile for longer. Yes, tennis ball self massage does help with until you can get to that massage therapist! After releasing your pressure points you’ll find a bit sore, but this pain will soon go away (and you may get bruising on your first go, but it’s unlikely).