Grab Your Balls and Get to Work!

In my line of work, I get to hear what ails everybody.  The top three areas of discomfort (this is the new buzzword for pain being used in the fitness community) are: neck, lower back and knees in that order. What my clients and students don’t realize is that often times we cause this discomfort ourselves. How we work out, how we perform our activities of daily living and our nasty postural habits all contribute to this discomfort.  There is a quick fix for this and I would like to share that with you. Simple myofascial release work with small balls and foam rollers can alleviate a lot of this soreness.   The trick is to do it on a consistent basis.

Let’s talk neck – everybody complains about this poor body part.  The head, neck and shoulders are ruled by the thoracic vertebrae.  So a quick fix for this area would be to use a peanut mobe (double balls) or take 2 tennis balls and tape them together or place them in a sock.  The idea is to keep the balls off the bony part of your spine and target the muscles that emanate  from the spine called the multifidi.  Once these little buggers calm down, you feel relief in your neck.   As you lie supine with your knees bent & feet on the floor, you can sway from side to side and this will give pressure to the tool you are using.  Where is the thoracic spine, you ask?  The area at your bra strap (sorry guys – but you know where that is J).  Your spot may also be a little higher or a little lower so you need to embark on your own personal journey here.

The next popular body part is the lower back a.k.a. lumbar spine. Much lower than the thoracic spine, this area is ruled by two large slabs of muscle called the quadratus lumborum.  Although it would seem to be the deepest muscle of the lower back, the QL is, strangely enough, the deepest muscle of the abdomen.  It is just located on the posterior surface of the thorax. This part of the body is really affected by our sitting posture and our poor ADLs.  We all know the “ I just reached for the soap in the shower” trick but that happened because you were not engaging your core and using good breath mechanics.  In addition, tight glutes pull on your QL.  This is a tricky area because you may find relief just using your foam roller on your lumbar spine but you may also need to tap into the piriformis.  This troublemaker gets really really tight when we engage the glutes in a big way (spin class, running, squatting and even from doing nothing but sitting LOL).  Then low and behold, sciatica occurs in the form of that tight piriformis compressing the sciatic nerve. Fast cure here is sitting on your foam roller and spanning side to side from the sacrum to the greater trochanter.  Again, moving a bit higher or lower will work for you and this becomes a personal journey because your s**t is different from someone else’s. 

The IT band (iliotibial band) runs from the gluteal fascia and inserts into the tibial tubercle (knee area),  When this sheet of fascia causes discomfort, it’s time to lie on your side on your foam roller and span side to side and up and down to your degree of tolerance.  Of course, if it is excruciating, you can just lay on the roller and breathe.  That may just be enough for you.  Releasing the IT band will assist with any knee issues you have.   Unfortunately, when our glutes and piriformis give us problems and they both pull on the IT band and vice versa, that pulling action can misalign the kneecap.  Sound familiar that you developed knee problems after that hike upstate you took or that half marathon you ran? 

Yup – just connecting the dots of your fascial system could be just the ticket for a body that feels amazing.  What are your waiting for?  Grab your balls and your foam roller and get to work!!!!  JJ