Learn how a simple tennis ball could help you fight chronic pain!
Back pain could seriously affect the quality of your life, oftentimes even impair your productivity and work. There are many things that could cause back pain from affecting you, including incorrect posture, putting too much strain on your body (for example, by lifting heavy objects incorrectly) or even physical injuries.
Physical therapy and massage sessions are often considered great tools to keep the pain at bay. People affected by chronic pain, in particular, often report that they benefit greatly from frequent sessions.
However, daily sessions might not always be practical or possible, due to financial reasons.
While massage therapy is a great way to relax your muscles, enhance your circulation and soothe your ache, it might not always practical to get massage sessions or therapy visits very often. If you are looking to keep treating your pain at home, there are many things you can do on your own in order to do something between sessions.
Whether the cause of your back pain, there is one simple trick that you can seamlessly implement if you want to get rid of it!
This particular “trick’ involves a quick shopping list: you might already have the following tools at home, but if you don’t already possess them, you could easily acquire them at the shopping mall for a few bucks. You are going to need:
-A handful of tennis balls
The DIY community seems to love tennis ball. Some sound producers use them as insulation material to reduce noise in their home studios; swimming pool owners like to throw a few tennis balls in their pools and let them absorb grease and other substances that might be contaminating their water. Even gym and fitness lovers love to use them to find relief from back pain.
– Heavy Duty Duct Tape
In addition to that, you will need some space to practice the exercise. Usually, your living room floor will be more than enough – any flat and hard surface will do. As far as time consumption, you are only going to need 10 to 20 minutes a day to reap the benefits of the technique that we are about to explain within this article. Read on to learn more about the steps of the process in great detail!
– Grab two tennis balls and tape them with duct tape next to each other. It is essential to ensure that the balls will retain their shape and don’t wiggle around too much. Tape them as tightly as you possibly can!
– The next step of the process is very simple. Place the balls on the floor (or on a carpet, to help them stay in place without slipping and moving too much). As soon as the balls are laying steadily on the floor, lay on them by adopting a supine position (in layman terms, lay down while facing up towards the ceiling).
– As you are laying down, make sure to keep your knees bent up, which will help you keep your spine aligned. Make sure that the tennis balls are touching your lower back, just parallel to the backspace above your waist, for maximum results. Feel free to move around slightly, until you feel comfortable in your position. There is no reason to make yourself uncomfortable!
At this point, it is vital to raise your arms and point them towards the ceiling. Keep your neck straight as well. Once you have assumed the position described in the previous line, it’s about time to get started moving. One arm at a time, lower the limb in a slow fashion, aiming for your head. At the same time, you can bend your neck to find the most comfortable position as your arms are moving.
Keep repeating the movement pattern as often as you’d like. If you don’t want to spend more than 10 to 15 minutes on this simple exercise, 4 to 5 repetitions will definitely do! It’s up to you to decide how many repetitions you can handle, but be sure to remember not to strain yourself. The very last thing you will want to do is to put a lot of stress on your body. If you are struggling to perform the exercise or feel pain from it, it might be a good idea to drop it or reduce your routine to a minimal number of repetitions. Take it easy, and perform the movements very slowly to reap the benefits of this simple DIY back pain reduction trick.
Alternative approaches
If you don’t feel like taping tennis balls together, or if this exercise is a bit too much for you, there are many other exciting things you could do with tennis balls in order to ease your back pain and find some relief.
For instance, you could use a single tennis ball as a way to target sciatica pain or your lower back in more detail. You could simply place a single tennis ball on the floor and sit on it, using your buttocks to keep it in place. The pressure exercised by the tennis ball should treat you with a very soothing effect, targeting those specific areas in a very efficient way.
This approach is also less time-consuming than the exercise described above because it does not require any preparation whatsoever. You won’t need to spend time taping up tennis balls together: solely use a single tennis ball and enjoy the benefits of this simple exercise! You can even place the tennis ball right under your upper tight while laying on the floor, to focus on that specific part of your body.
You could also use a racquetballs in place of the tennis balls as the racquetballs tend to be softer and more forgiving.
These are a few useful tips and tricks that you can adopt in your day-to-day life if you are dealing with chronic pain. While these won’t replace a proper therapy session anytime soon, they are going to soothe your pain in between one session and the other!
If you try this approach and are still having issues with your back, give us a call at 1-800-930-8803 and set up a Free Discovery Visit with one of our back pain specialists or click here to register for your Free Discovery Visit.
