Seated Massage on Tennis Balls

If you want to relieve muscle pain in your butt while giving your upper hamstrings and seat a treat and try this youtube video. This massage may help relieve pain you're experiencing in your lower back or knees. It will also serve to revive you if you feel your energy stores waning or if you need to get your upper leg muscles charged before a run.

This no hands self-massage routine lets you experience sensations you never thought possible. Every active person can benefit from this improbable combination of seated massage and dance. Try it! But before you do locate a couple of tennis balls and your sitz bones.

Sitz bones, or sitting bones, are the bones in your pelvic girdle that help support your body when you sit. If you study anatomy you probably know them as the ischial tuberosity. They’re the lowest of the three big bones that are your pelvis. When you’re sitting up straight you’ll feel one on each side of your seat. To locate them try placing the tennis balls directly beneath them. You’ll know them when you’re sitting on them because they’re the only bony structures in your butt. Don’t massage them but use them as reference points when working the muscles around them.

For a balanced massage synchronize each tennis balls in relationship to its sitting bone so that each ball is just to the outside of its sitz bones, or just in front, or where ever you like just as long as their relative distance from their respective sitz bone is about the same. Ok try it!

Balls on Butt Massage: Do It while You View It

IT Band Self-Massage

Massaging your iliotibial bands can be a big help if you run, cycle, or are experiencing pain in your knees.
The IT band lives on the lateral portion of your thigh and runs from just below your knee to your pelvis. It’s made of tough connective tissue and muscle. The muscle is in the middle.
When it’s working right your IT band stabilizes your hip and knee. When it’s not working right you might experience pain along the outer portion of your knee. IT band syndrome is the overuse injury often suffered by runners and sometimes cyclists.
Massage can help. To help you give it a try I've posted a youtube video: IT Band Massage Quickie: Do It while You View It. I'm planning to post a couple more, a longer version with massage tools and another with the IT band stretched a little.
Another IT band massage video I like is this one by Art Riggs. If you're experiencing problems in your legs and you think it might be related to your IT bands this video is worth watching. And finally this one by Massagenerd is also worth checking out.

Quadriceps Massage

If you've got quads, you'll benefit from massaging them. But this massage is particularly helpful if you run (especially up hills), cycle, ski, board, play soccer, practice karate, squat, or jump rope.

Your quadriceps are a muscle group made up of four distinct muscles which live in the front of your thigh. The four muscles are rectus femoris, vastus lateralis, vastus medialis, and vastus intermedius. But you can call them all Bob. They're probably the strongest leanest muscles in your body. They straighten your knee when getting up from a seat, walking, running, cycling or any other activity that requires you to straighten your leg. So if your knees are a problem, the problem may be in your quads. Massage them regularly and your knee may feel better, but your quads definitely will. Try it: Quad Massage: Do It while You View It.

Chest Pec Self-Massage

Since being hit by a car in July, I've been unable to run and have been doing lots of swimming and more weight lifting. As a result my pecs were sore so I came up with this chest massage YouTube video. It's done me some good, hope it does you some. Try it out Chest Pec Massage: Do It while You View It. Let me know what you think.

photo by Mylor

Foot Health and Self-Massage

Four million years for the human foot to evolve, 200 years for modern shoes to undo it.

Your feet are highly evolved complex instruments. Each foot contains 26 bones, 33 joints, and 20 muscles. Most of the major muscles live in the soles of your feet along with more than 200,000 nerve endings. These are among the richest concentrations of sensory neurons in your body. Their purpose is to transmit information to the rest of you, especially your legs. They thrive on sensation, without it they die.

Modern Shoes
Your shoes act as sensory deprivation chambers for your feet. Sensory deprivation has been shown to be harmful, sometimes deadly. Want to drive someone crazy? Deprive them of sensory input. Want to damage your body? Deprive it of sensory stimulation. That’s what shoes, in part, do to your feet.

Information Transfer
Our feet, as evidenced by their large supply of nerve endings, are designed to transmit information about our environment. Without shoes, our feet tell us when they hit the ground so our legs can absorb the impact. Because of the cushioned shoes we wear our feet don’t get the message and neither do our legs so neither can do their job. Our whole body pays the price, especially our legs. For more on this check out this article You Walk Wrong.

To some extent your body compensates for this lack of sensory feedback by getting used to the shoes in question and calculating the correct response to each step you take. To make the calculation easier, it makes sense to wear shoes with little cushioning and be consistent in the shoes you wear.

Massage
Bare foot walking provides a massage for your feet as they directly touch a rich and varied terrain. Shoes prevent your feet from getting the daily massage they need. Unless you’re walking around barefoot, you need another way to get your feet the sensory stimulation they must have to remain healthy.

A handy way to deliver the sensory information your body needs is massage, and the handiest way to massage your feet may not be with your hands but with your balls, tennis balls that is. Just put them under your feet and run with them. You should be seated when you try it. Here, take a look at this foot massage video and give your feet a treat.

Recommendation
Keep a couple of tennis balls under your desk, and from time to time kick off your shoes and roll your feet over your tennis balls. Your whole body will thank you for it.

Booty Ball Massage

If you want to run faster, jump higher, or sit prettier, a glute massage is your ticket. Yes, every active person needs the benefits that only a glute massage can bequeath. If you have a desk job, here’s how to get those benefits at work.

Choose One

Softball, baseball, hard rubber ball, golf ball, squash ball

Get a ball. Size matters, so does hardness. Choose the size that’s right for your chair and seat. The softer the seat the bigger the ball. It’s a hard ball and a hard chair you want. Choose the smallest ball that you can feel when you sit and roll your hips over it. A hard squash ball is best butt if your seat has lots of padding you’ll need something bigger maybe a golf ball, tennis ball, baseball or even a softball. Then you’ll need to get on the ball.

Five Steps to Massage Your Glutes
Step 1: Choose sides
Choose the side you want to start with, the one that most needs a massage.

Step 2: Roll it
Place the ball on your chair and your glutes on the ball. Then roll your hips in small circles, clockwise and then counter clockwise. Periodically shift the position of the ball. Continue shifting the ball and circling your hips. You may find that a different sized ball works better, if you have another ball handy try it. After massaging one side give your other side a ride.

Step 3: Turning the other cheek
Rotate your hips in small circles, then every once in a while move the ball to a new spot under your glutes. Look for tender spots. You can move the ball by shifting your glutes or just picking up the ball and replacing it.

Tips:
Music makes this massage more effective and fun
Relax your glutes
Breathe into your butt
Press the heels of your hands into your quads while continuing to roll your hips.
It may take you a couple of tries to find the right ball but when you do you’ll know it

Step 4: Drumming
Drum, slap, or tap your glutes with the heels of your hands or your fists. You’ll have to stand up to drum your glutes but they’re worth getting up for.

Step 5: Rock’n Roll
Get up and dance. Wake it and shake it, move your booty!

Conclusion: Try variations on this routine every time your glutes feel tight, or your lower back or hips need attention. If it’s been awhile since you had a good glute massage do this routine often.

Suggested Time: 5 minutes (but take as long as you need).

Benefits of Glute Massage
Releases trigger points
Activates acupressure points
Relieves muscle pain and soreness
Feels good
Improves athletic performance
Relaxes
Energizes
Gives your hips a workout
A treat for your seat
Massaging your glutes massages the largest muscles in your body
Massaging your glutes may relieve pain in your lower back and hips

Note: I recommend a hard squash ball. Squash balls are made of rubber of two types: hard and soft. The hard ones make great massage tools, the soft ones do not.

For more information on the gluteus maximus muscle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glutes

For more than you ever wanted to know about the butt: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butt

Watch the YouTube Video Booty Ball Massage: Do It While You View It