A Tennis Ball and a Tube Sock
By James Howard, LMT
Life can be a pain in the back sometimes, am I right? Specifically, you might feel the pain right between your shoulder blades. You know the area, don’t you? Yeah, it’s that spot that you can’t seem to reach with your hands, no matter how much you contort.
So if you want to rub that stiff, sore spot, what do you do? The best answer is to get a professional massage. Nothing will soothe that area quite like a skilled pair of hands. Let’s say that you are in a pinch though. For some reason or another, you just can’t get in for a massage. You need to improvise and you find yourself asking “what would MacGyver do?” Well, you can perform a little DIY back massage with just a wall, a tennis ball, and a tube sock.
Here’s what you do: Find an old sock, either tube or crew. Grab a tennis ball and stuff it in the sock. Dangle it over your shoulder, and raise or lower the sock to put the tennis ball right over the achy muscle that’s bothering you. Then lean against a wall, using the wall to press the tennis ball into your back, squishing it into that pesky knotted up muscle. Be gentle at first, but eventually you will find yourself really leaning into it and it will feel like that moment during the massage when the therapist finds a good spot and digs in.
As I said, nothing will soothe you like a pair of skilled hands, but if it is going to be a week or two before you can make an appointment, you can loosen up the area yourself, which may help tide you over for a little bit. Go on, give it a try.