The lacrosse ball is a hard, dense ball that is an awesome self-massage tool for MANY different parts of your body. When someone gives you a deep tissue massage, they use their palms/fingers/elbows to apply pressure to help relax tight muscles and make you feel better. The lacrosse ball helps mimic this deep release with your own bodyweight. The best part is that you could go to town on your glutes and hamstrings in a way that not even many massage-therapists will because of how intimate that area is. (When was the last time someone FIRMLY massaged your ASS? Right?) So thats why I have one, to get free ass massages, haha. (No but seriously, it’s great for the whole body.)
Where to buy?
These balls on Amazon are pretty great. If you have a store called “Big 5” near you, they may sell them in packs as well for slightly cheaper per ball, but I’ve noticed they are like 10-15% less hard than the ones on amazon for some reason, so the ones on Amazon are actually worth it.
Alternatives
If you don’t have a lacrosse ball, you could use a tennis ball, baseball, softball, billiard ball, cricket ball, floor hockey ball, golf ball, spalding bouncey ball as alternatives. They don’t work as well as the lacrosse one in some cases, but it’s better than nothing and sometimes it may even be better!
I’ve also tried “massage balls” meant to mimic the lacrosse ones made by Triggerpoint and RumbleRoller because they make GREAT foam rollers. Unfortunately, I found their balls to be extremely ineffective/less useful than a lacrosse ball and much more expensive to boot. You could also use golf balls, but because they’re small, they’re not as versatile. Tennis balls work great when you’re new at this, but again, they collapse and overtime will collapse easily and be useless while the lacrosse ball is quite permanent.
GIFs
I wanted to save redditors time, so I made gifs of everything with my doggie here.
- Gluteus Maximus
- Piriformis
- Hamstrings (sit on hard surface and place under thigh)
- Feet / Plantar Fascia (hold onto something for balance)
- Upper Back (Traps)
- Triceps/Brachialis
- Triceps alternative style (tack ball and straighten/bend elbow)
- Gluteus Medius (Static, just chill over it)
- Deltoids & Upper Chest against wall (no GIF of this, it’s in the video tho and it’s worth mentioning that you could do it)