Tennis Ball Therapy

Last night I was so tired I didn’t have the energy to post anything.  It’s been a stressful week at work – Wednesday night, in anticipation of a horrifyingly contentious meeting on Thursday morning, I slept a grand total of one hour.  ONE HOUR.  And I suppose Saturday was really my first chance to catch up.  So yesterday, after doing the grocery shopping and various chores, I had an incredible three-hour nap, from noon to 3:00.  Then Lynn and I met at the Regal Westgate for a movie – Argo, by Ben Affleck. Highly recommend it.  One of the reviews I read advised that, if you don’t remember this story – about six stragglers who escaped from the U.S. embassy during the hostage crisis and found shelter with the Canadian ambassador and his wife – don’t Google or Wikepedia it, and just let yourself get caught up in the tension. It was good advice, but I’ve been doing research on it ever since, and it’s a fascinating story.

Banks and I did our five at about 7:30.  It was still hot and muggy, and he wasn’t too cooperative, but he hung with me.  The real issue was my back.  I did something really stupid the other day – I took some light weights from my office to my car, and trying to save myself a trip, I picked up all four of them and held them at an awkward angle while making my way to the car.  Of course I pulled something in my lower back, and deep in my right hip is some kind of pinched nerve.  So when Banks and I started out, I was walking gingerly, but as always, once I found my stride and kept it steady, the pain worked itself out. 

It’s when you’re NOT moving that the pain comes back.  Not horrible, debilitating pain, but a dull and nagging one.  At times like that, you’d give anything for a deep-tissue massage, but since that’s not always readily available, I have found an excellent substitute.  Forgive me if I’ve already shared this with you, but it’s worth repeating.  Get a tennis ball, and lie on it.  If it’s a pinched nerve, it hurts like hell when you start, but steel yourself to just let your body sink into/onto the ball while it’s squarely on the nerve.  Or if it’s a tight section of your back and shoulders, roll around on it a little bit. 

If you’re lucky, you’ve got a dog like Banks who loves to chew on tennis balls, and with a hole in the ball, it remains firm while still having a little give in it.  If you’ve got a fully inflated ball, you might want to wrap it in a thick athletic sock to take a bit of the edge off.

In any event, it WORKS.  I can’t remember where I learned this from, but I’ve done it for years.  You will get up off the ground in better shape than when you laid down, I promise.