SaveYourself.ca helps you solve pain problems

muscle knots Sun Nov 15th @ 2:00pm by Paul Ingraham

Bucket of balls

This morning I was struck by the powerful, simple utility of a “bucket of balls” — that is, a handy container full of various balls suitable for self-massage. Large balls, small balls, soft balls and hard balls.

Er, so? This sounds rather unremarkable.

What struck me particularly about this today was the exceptional bang-for-buck that can be extracted from a simple bucket of balls, worth no more than $200 total (and that’s if you have expensive taste in balls — you could easily fill your bucket for less). Of course, I have long advocated self-massage as a cheap, safe and not-miraculous-but-still-rather-decent method for managing common muscle pain.

Self-treatment is not just a theme on SaveYourself.ca, it is the theme! What’s new here is that, over time, I’m coming to understand that a bucket of balls is really the best of all self-treatment tools for muscle pain: an easy collection to work on, cheap and endlessly useful, adaptable and portable.

Two years ago, I wouldn’t have recommend a selection of balls as a big deal in particular. I was enamoured with (and experimenting with) many other massage tools, many of which I still like. But balls “win” — ultimately, you just can’t do better than a nice selection of balls! No one prone to muscle pain should be without their balls.

That said, even though it’s easy to find a variety of balls (try a pet shop), there is a particular sort of ball, made of a special foam rubber, that has particularly captured my heart in the past year. I recommend that you drop by ShiatsuBag.com and buy the combo pack of balls. No kickback for me here: just genuine enthusiasm. They have a marvelous array of textures.

ADVANCED TUTORIAL

Save Yourself from Trigger Points & Myofascial Pain Syndrome!

Myofascial trigger points — muscle knots — are increasingly recognized by all health professionals as the cause of most of the world’s aches and pains. This detailed tutorial focuses on advanced troubleshooting for patients who have failed to get relief from basic tactics, but it’s also ideal for starting beginners on the right foot, and for pros who need to stay current. 213 sections grounded in the famous texts of Drs. Travell & Simons, as well as more recent science, this constantly updated tutorial is also offered as a free bonus (2-for-1) with the low back, neck, muscle, or iliotibial pain tutorials. Add it to your shopping cart now ($19.95) or read the first few sections for free!

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