A lacrosse ball? For massage? Where a massage roller is great for releasing knots in larger muscles; the lacrosse ball shines when trying to release hard to reach knots. Releasing knots and tension in your muscles can improve your recovery, reduce pain and increase your flexibility.
What body parts can I use a lacrosse ball on?
There are a number of body parts that will benefit from using a lacrosse ball to reach specific spots. These include:
- the upper back,
- neck,
- arms,
- chest,
- glutes,
- hamstrings,
- thighs,
- calves, and
- feet.
As you can see a lacrosse ball can be used to release knots and tension in a large range of body parts. Most of these body parts overlap with the places you can use a massage roller. The main difference is the lacrosse ball can access muscles that the massage roller doesn’t even come close to reaching.
The feet are a good example of using a lacrosse ball to release tension on a hard to reach position. The best way is to stand (or even while sitting) on the ball and move it around your foot as you are putting pressure down. This is great for the fascia of your foot and greatly enables your flexibility.
Try this – from standing reach down for your toes and see how far you get. Then use the previous technique to roll the ball around both your feet for about one minute. When you reach for your toes again you should find you have much more flexibility; just from a couple of minutes of massage rolling.
To get a good set of lacrosse balls at a cheap price you can find a set here. Even better if you also play lacrosse as you can use them in your practice as well. These massage powerhouses are also featured in our recovery kit here, where you can find more great products to help improve your recovery.