The Spikey Ball can give great temporary release to any soft tissue tension you target, so providing your condition is a soft tissue one, releasing soft tissue tension can get you through most challenges. Fascia shrinkage and muscle fibre trigger points are common causes of soft tissue fatigue/tension that result from soft tissue ‘over use’ or ‘under use‘.
Spikey balls and stretching are easy ‘no cost’ ways of managing soft tissue tension. Post activity compression and pro-active sports massage are two other simple ways to effectively speed recovery and prevent soft tissue injury that can come from stored soft tissue tension/fatigue.
When treating your upper body from shoulders to hips the Spikey Ball should be placed between your body treatment area and a wall. Then by leaning into the spikey ball and lowering and raising your upper body by bending/straightening at the knees you will produce a rolling action through soft tissue. Combine this action with upper body rotation and you will cover all treatment areas through back, upper arms, chest and glutes including lateral glutes. As you self-treat this way you can vary the pressure through the SB by leaning into or out from the wall. What you are looking for is a twitch/response from muscle and when you feel it, you’ll know instinctively, you reduce your movement to “very specific” over the point for about 5 to 10 seconds…….then move on.
Legs and arms require a different technique. For legs, use both hands to roll the spikey ball through quads, hamstrings, calves and shins (front of lower leg) and always treat the non-weight bearing leg. With quad’s, if you are treating the right side lean to the left side and treat the right quad. With hamstring/calf and shin, place the foot of the side for treatment on a chair then treat with the two handed technique. Upper arms can be treated as the upper body, forearms can be treated as the legs, but with a single hand obviously.
Another spikey ball technique is instead of the rolling motion, you hold the Spikey Ball in one hand and press the spikey convex side into the area for treatment applying good pressure as you want to target the fascia beneath the skin then with the spikes gripping the skin and fascia begin a rotating up and down, back and forth movement, without allowing the ball to roll or slide. Do this for 5 seconds then move on to the edge of the last area treated and repeat the action. This technique is great for arms, legs and glutes.
When using a Spikey ball you can treat directly onto your skin or through clothing…… easy!
Another use of the spikey ball is when driving, especially long distances, when your posterior shoulders and lumber areas ache from the poor posture of driving. Place a Spikey Ball between your ache and the back of the driver’s seat and wriggle around a little, I think you will be happy with the relief you get!
If you need any more advice, get in touch with us and book in for a massage!
