As a physical therapist, I really believe in doing things that are going to create long-term effects for your health. That is why I also believe that movement is medicine and can be really helpful to your overall health meaning both your physical and mental health. I think it would be remiss to not talk about the things that can create short-term benefits because sometimes the short-term things can help the long-term things overall.
As an example for short-term affecting long-term benefits, when I see a patient, a lot of times I will do some type of manual and soft tissue work on them that can be like a massage. This targeted soft tissue work can help to decrease pain in and increase blood flow to the area. This can then help people to start doing the exercises that they need to do to make sure that pain is always decreased. I find that this is really helpful.
Example When I Use Yoga Tune-Up Balls
Before talking about yoga tune-up balls and how to effectively use them, let me give you an example on when I use it for my clients. When someone comes to see me for Achilles tendonitis, which is the very thick tendon at the bottom of your calf and connects to your heel, I will do some soft tissue work to the calf, do some stretching, and then do some strengthening. Not everyone has access to go see a physical therapist of a massage therapist, and I find that yoga tune-up balls can be a great replacement for that. Sometimes, the aches that you feel in your body are not severe enough to get outside help so the yoga tune-up balls can be a great thing to use to help with that.
However, not everyone knows how to use the yoga tune-up balls effectively. I have seen people use them ineffectively and that will not necessarily help them see progress over a long period of time.
What Is A Yoga Tune-Up Ball
If you’ve never heard of a yoga tune-up ball, it is a rubbery and forgiving ball that you can basically roll on the muscles throughout your body. Essentially, the goal is similar to a massage or what a physical therapist would do with soft tissue work: to help increase blood flow to the area and decrease any pain that you may be experiencing.
I think some people get into fascia with this. The fascia is connected to the muscle and it will be difficult to roll your fascia and not also roll your muscles. So, I do not separate these two unlike other people in the yoga tune-up world.
How Yoga Tune-Up Balls Are Beneficial And How To Use Them Effectively
The first thing that I like to do before using a yoga tune-up ball is warming up your body before rolling on them. This may, if you are somebody who does yoga, include a couple sun salutations, or doing a five or ten-minute brisk walk if you do not do yoga. This helps to get the blood flowing and the tissue will be a little more responsive when you have some blood flow going. If I am in the clinic, for example, and I am using my hands instead of a yoga tune-up ball, I will probably have someone either ride the bike or walk on the treadmill before I necessarily put my hands on them to help warm up any of the tissues if it is appropriate.
The next thing you will do is whatever area you are rolling through, you will roll through that area very lightly. For example, if you will be rolling through your calf muscle, you are not going to put your whole body weight through the ball as you roll back and forth and up and down the calf muscle. You will do this for about 30 seconds to a minute as this is a good enough time to warm up the tissue. You do not want to go deep right away because we are just trying to bring blood flow to the area, which will help with the elasticity and stretch of your muscles.
Once you’ve done this, you can start to roll a little bit deeper. If you are looking at the calf, you might roll up and down then you also roll side to side so you get the muscle not just parallel with the muscle fibers, but also perpendicular.
The next thing you will do is you will pin the ball to one spot and do a movement that that muscle does to help the muscle move better. That is essentially what we are trying to do to create better flexibility and elasticity throughout the muscle. For example, in your calf, you want to place the ball underneath the middle of your calf and you can cross your other leg over to put a little bit more pressure. Where the ball is pinned under, with that foot, you’ll want to point and flex the foot and do some circles with the ankle. This helps to move the tissue better in its fascial sheath, which then helps with the elasticity and flexibility with that muscle and can also help you decrease the pain.
After you are done doing these things, what you need to do is to stretch. The final thing that you can do to really see and solidify these long-term benefits is some light strengthening. For example, to strengthen your calf muscles, you can do gentle heel raises to strengthen the muscle.
The reason for doing all these things is to help make the nervous system feel safer for you to do those movements in a higher load situation.
So again, the steps for using the yoga tune-up balls effectively is to warm your body up, lightly roll on the ball, roll a little bit deeper going parallel and perpendicular with the muscle fibers, pin the ball under one spot doing some movements to stimulate that muscle, stretch, and do some light strengthening. Again, you do all of these with the efforts to decrease pain in this area so you can move a little bit more freely.
Other Way I Like To Use Yoga Tune-Up Balls
The other way that I like to use yoga tune-up balls is strictly for recovery. After I play a tennis match, I know that there are certain muscles in my body that tend to feel a little more sore the next day. So, I use the yoga tune-up balls to roll through those tissues to help push out any lactic acid that is in the area so that it can help decrease the soreness so I can move a little bit more freely the next day. I would not necessarily do any strengthening activity after that because it is after a tennis match and I just moved my body pretty hard. So it is best to just roll through the muscles as it is helpful to relax them after doing an intense thing.
It does not have to be tennis or any sport, as doing some tough gardening work, for example, is another activity where you need to roll through the muscles with the yoga tune-up balls. It can also help decrease your soreness the next day.
Learn More About Yoga Tune-Up Balls
If you want to learn more on how to use yoga tune-up balls, you can join me on December 9, Thursday, at 6:30 to 7:45 P.M. PST during my roll and restore class. The class will essentially go through all of the steps I shared with you in this blog. We will basically give our whole body a massage with these yoga tune-up balls and do some stretching to follow up. We will also do a deep restorative pose at the end to create a final relaxation for you.
If this is something you are interested in, you can click here to sign up. If you read this blog after December 9, there will be a recording that will be live on our website if you want to purchase that to learn how to use yoga tune-up balls a little bit more effectively.
Conclusion
I hope that this helped you today and gave you some insight that although movement is great to create long-term benefits for our health, the short-term stuff like massage through yoga-tune up balls can be really helpful to decrease any pain and decrease your recovery time so you can get back to moving faster.