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September 3, 2021

Things You Can Do at Home to Enhance Your Chiropractic Care

Things You Can Do at Home to Enhance Your Chiropractic Care

When you receive treatment at Team Elite, we’ll show you exercises you can do at home to remain pain-free between chiropractic sessions. Foam rollers, tennis balls, and massage guns are among the top chiropractic tools we encourage you to use at home to enhance your chiropractic care plan.

Foam Roller

Foam rolling is a self-myofascial release (SMR) technique that you can do at home. It is used to relieve muscle tightness, soreness, and inflammation, as well as increase your joint range of motion.

Foam rollers come in many types and styles, which are relatively easy to find at many sporting goods stores and major online retailers, including low-density (soft) rollers, firm rollers, and bumpy rollers.

We recommend trying different foam rollers to find the one that works best for you. Ideally, you want a roller that’s not too hard and not too soft, and that is large enough to treat your entire body.

Two of our favorite foam rollers are:

Use the foam roller at least once a day to loosen up your tissues, which can help reduce pain and tightness. We also recommend using the foam roller before workouts to wake and warm up your muscles and after your workout to help recovery.

Here’s how to use the foam roller:
  1. Start with light pressure and build up over time
  2. You may find it painful to foam roll at first if your muscles are tight. You can adjust pressure by reducing the amount of bodyweight you’re putting onto the roller
  3. Slowly roll areas for 10 seconds to start, then increase to 30-60 seconds
  4. Drink plenty of water after foam rolling to help with recovery

If you feel tightness in certain spots, use a tennis or lacrosse ball to target those specific areas.

Tennis and Lacrosse Balls

Tennis and lacrosse balls are extremely useful at targeting tight spots that a foam roller cannot reach, making it easy for you to do targeted self-myofascial release at home.

Tennis balls are softer than lacrosse balls, which are more dense and firm. Therefore, it’s wise to have both types of balls on hand to treat areas with different tightness and pain levels.

How to use tennis or lacrosse balls for self-myofascial release:
  1. Lie on the ground and place the ball under the tight spot
  2. Use gravity to allow yourself to sink deeply into the ball
  3. Maintain that position for 30 seconds while breathing deeply, inhaling and exhaling five times
  4. Roll yourself an inch to the left or right and repeat the 30-second breathing technique until you’ve worked all the tightness out of that particular area
  5. Tennis and lacrosse balls should produce a “good-hurt” sensation due to the way this technique works and relaxes tight muscles. 

Get off the ball if you experience a sharp pain or jolt, which could indicate you are pressing or damaging a nerve. Avoid pushing through this at-home exercise if you feel pain, as it could cause an injury that requires longer care.

Massage Guns and Resistance Bands

Massage guns are another relatively new self-myofascial release tool that uses vibration therapy to massage and loosen tight muscles.

Our favorite massage guns are:  

The last at-home technique we recommend incorporating into your chiropractic care is resistance bands. Resistance bands are activation tools that are ideal for activating and engaging your core. Resistance bands are affordable, light, versatile, and highly effective at increasing your strength, improving flexibility, and accelerating your recovery.

Our favorite resistance bands are:

At Team Elite Chiropractic, our patients receive comprehensive chiropractic care that combines both chiropractic and physical therapy best practices and techniques to ensure you are receiving the best possible care. 

Contact us today at 858-633-8036 or visit our website to book an appointment.

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