How to self manage trigger points with a wall ball

So could trigger points be triggering your back pain or your neck pain or your headaches? The answer is yes. What is a trigger point? A trigger point - Jess has a beautiful one here to show you - a trigger point is a roping nodule, tense area in the muscle or the ligament or the tendon.

And what it does is it causes pain, so when it's stimulated, by exercise, by having a cold, it causes an explosion of pain. There's many ways to treat trigger points. We use laser, acupuncture, trigger point therapy. But you can self manage at home too, using a wall ball. A wall ball is a hard, firm, spiky ball, made of rubber, which you're gonna lean against and work out your trigger points. Let's see how you doo that, Jess.

Jess is going to put the ball between her shoulders and wrap her arms around herself. That's really important. And then standing out a little bit from the wall, doing a few squats, and just roll the ball to the muscles between the shoulders. You can feel the trigger points. It's like having a huge set of guided thumbs that go in an loosen these tight muscles. If you do the sides of your shoulders, so if you have a shoulder problem, a great way to relax your shoulders.

Put yourself in this position and roll the ball. Fantastic, does that hurt Jess? Yes and she is fit and young and strong and yet she has trigger points in her shoulders. Back to the position, the ball goes down to the small of the back, you basically do the squats up and down, using that guided thumb, the ball to work our trigger points. If you have chronic back pain, this is fantastic. If you've been travelling, flying, driving your car for a long distance, wonderful way at the end of the trip to ease those tight muscles. So if you want to self manage your trigger points, try the wall ball. It's magic.