Workouts: None
I've had some piriformis issues the past few weeks along with some incredible lower back and hip tightness. At work Thursday and Friday my right hip/butt was literally throbbing with pain. No amount of stretching and tennis ball massage was giving relief and I'm not really in a position to take weeks off letting this thing heal up with IMLP just a few short months away.
Enter the massage ball.
When I first saw these at the IM Wisconsin expo a couple of years back, I was really skeptical, especially when they quoted the price. $130 for some balls and rollers that supposedly fix all kinds of injuries, yeah, right.
Some research and a lot of forum posts later, I was interested in getting a set to see if they could help my situation. At this point I was willing to try anything to get rid of the throbbing pain.
After calling around to the retailers in the SE PA region listed on the site, I found a chiro in Delaware that had them, and cheaper than expected. A 'quick' 2-hour round trip later and I was back home with the entire TP massage ball kit in hand.
After dinner I popped the DVD in and started using them. My girlfriend wasn't a fan of the video, laughing pretty hard at it, and I wasn't too thrilled with it either, the website provides better diagrams on how to use the products. I used them again on Saturday morning and again in the evening. At this point the throbbing was going down quickly and my lower back/hips felt loose and relaxed.
I pretty much followed the protocol on the website for piriformis pain: release the soleus, then the quads, then the piriformis, then the hips and lower back. The entire process on both legs is only 15-20 minutes and it does take some getting used to the pain in the very beginning.
I've only used them for two days, but I still can't figure out why I didn't purchase them sooner.
June 4, 2006 at 12:46 pm
I’m just getting over a knee injury on my left side and now have lower back/piriformis/hamstring/shin tightness on my right side that my physio is working on, did stretching the area help at all? Right now I’m on physio and stretching and I just starting using this tennis ball. What’s the model of this massage ball/dvd you got?
June 4, 2006 at 12:49 pm
Ah just noticed the link at the top. How is the tightness now?
June 5, 2006 at 10:32 am
The tightness isn’t all gone, but it’s 90% better than what it used to be and my lower back hasn’t felt this good in a long time. When I first got the TP Massage Ball kit, I used it 2x per day, now I use it in the mornings and again at night if I feel I need to. Being able to massage the spinal erector muscles to get rid of the lower back pain was worth the money.
I plan on getting two more of the massage balls and putting them in a sock so I can massage both sides of the spine at one shot.