Yoga Tune Up® Therapy Balls Unwind Upper Back Tension
The levator scapulae is often bogged down and stuck to the muscles surrounding it – posterior scalene and trapezius in particular. Rolling out these areas will unstick adhered tissues from each other and return them to their natural ’slide and glide’ relationship. As Jill says in the video, “It’s going to feel a bit gnarly from time to time!” But the therapeutic relief that you feel afterwards indicates a healthy release of tissue to its natural position.
Sarah Court is an Integrated Yoga Tune Up® Teacher, also trained in Anusara and Jivamukti Yoga, who draws from all of these styles in her teaching. She teaches weekly Yoga Tune Up® and Vinyasa classes at various locations in Los Angeles, and trains yoga teachers in anatomy and in Yoga Tune Up® across the country. Sarah is a regular columnist at exercise.com, and both writes for and edits the Yoga Tune Up® blog. She has been featured in the New York Times and is one of nursingschool.net's 100 Incredible Yoga Teachers Who Blog.
Sarah's challenging and inspirational classes reflect a deep desire to support each student in their movement towards true self-awareness, and are tempered by a strong shot of down to earth humor and a deep knowledge of kinesiology, anatomy, alignment and therapeutics. As a graduate of Princeton University she is not afraid to write long run-on sentences.
Find her Yoga Tune Up® schedule
here or go to her full
website.
Great video for an important practice, thanks! As suggested, the Yoga Tune Up Therapy balls are one of the best ways I’ve experienced to free bound fascia and muscles, especially when you don’t have a body worker or loved one to get into those impossible to reach areas. Self massage of the shoulders and upper spine should be a daily practice in our modern lives of heavy computer use. This series with the YTU Therapy balls can bring relief with only an investment of a few dollars and some personal time, do it!
A general question: as I research and learn more about anatomy and how the body should optimally move, and the various fixes for movement and mobility problems, I’m still unclear on how these layers of body tissues can become adhered to each other. It’s probably a simple explanation. Can it get as bad as scar tissue from an injury? Or more like the layers are stuck together like layers of paper with double-sided tape?
Thank you for ALL these demonstrations. Upper back & neck pain relief never felt so good!
Just tried this one when I got my YTU balls for the first time yesterday. It’s going to be something I do all the time as I felt immediate relief from the tension I’ve been having in my neck/upper back. Thank you!
This was the first video I had the opportunity to watch since visiting the Yoga Tune Up blog. I really appreciate the verbal detail and visualizations from Jill as she instructs through the video. This is an area that is particularly tight in my body and the techniques to stretch the muscles using the balls have helped already!
I just finished the YTU weekend and my biggest discovery was how much the balls can relieve my chronic shoulder pain by massaging my muscles and rolling my tissues. After watching the video on the ‘fuzz’ by Gill Hedley I realized how much ‘fuzz’ we can buildup daily if we don’t move these areas and we rarely do since some of these muscles are not easy to access! The buildup of these collagen fibers can only be relived and broken down with the use of the balls, massages or physical therapy. Why not do it with the balls at home? I love it
I love these therapy balls
. I just learned how to use these balls on my body( especially my back which I need most ) during my yoga tune up class. These balls have magical power on my back. When I first used them on my back, I felt like it torturing me. Afterwards, my back felt much lighter and ” happier”. Thanks to our wonderful yoga tune up teacher Maura Barclay:)
My client had sever pain in his neck. Afer a bit of evaluating we determined it was his lev. scap. We did some of ball work on it and miraculously his pain was almost entirely gone. That together with making sure he was carrying his head over his heart has helped him prevent this from reoccurring.
I just tried this for the first time this weekend and I highly recommend it. It did wonders for my upper back and I plan on doing it a couple times a week going forward. Love it!
My upper back muscles thank you for a great demonstration on how to relieve that upper back nagging tension.
I have already tried this on my husband and daughter now they are hooked too! Really Great!
I can’t imagine going even two days without rolling the upper back, been doing this for four+ years now . This helped tremendously in a accident I was in yesterday where I was hit from behind. Love my balls!
Relief from this was amazing and also helped me tune in to the fact that I was hiking up/holding my right shoulder up a bit higher than my left. This work helped me find more balance as well as relief!
Rolling of the upper back brought so much more mobility to my everyday activities. I naturally internally rotate my shoulders and elevate my shoulders, due to stress. This causes major tension and stickiness in the upper back. Once I started using the balls I was able to relieve these areas on a daily basis, thus bringing me better posture and more comfort.
Since discovering the YTU therapy bals, I don’t go anywhere without them, they have been a huge benefit to myself and my athletic clients, those who work behind a computer all day have learned to love the benefits of these too! Many thanks for posting the video for federal!
I too have experienced first hand how rolling out on these muscles with the YTU balls has released the burden of tension in my shoulders. Since my shoulders feel more relaxed my posture has also improved. bonus!
I have experienced this work to release upper body tension in the recent anatomy workshop last month (I had with you, Sarah) and found it an amazing tool to care for my body especially if I don’t have a body worker or another persons hands available. I have recently discovered in workshop that my scapulas are not congruent! Oh no, lol. I believe this is due to the luggage bag I like to call my purse. I have recently changed my purse into a smaller and significantly lighter one. I switch off which shoulder I carry it on and have practiced the tools I learned from the workshop, as demonstrated in the video to care and tend to my back muscle (where I hold much of my tension and stress). Though I have a question how long due you do this exercise for and how often? Can you over due this bodywork where it would be harmful? I ask because how will I know if there has been a significant change in the congruency of my scapulas from doing this bodywork?
Hi Bobbi!
Addressing your scapula congruency is a two part process – rolling the balls to release tense tissue and adhesions is the first part (and to answer your question, you can do this daily), and the second part is strengthening the muscles that hold your scapula to your back and prevent winging. This is done mostly by our friend serratus anterior, which we found in the Megaplank with Active Serratus (protracting and depressing the serratus in a forearm plank pose). There is a recent post by Najla Said which addresses the serratus and I recommend you check it out!
This is one of my favorite YTU Therapy Ball segments. After a C spine injury a couple of years ago, I have a lot of tension in my upper back and shoulders due to compensation and guarding. This has created a lot of muscle imbalances and the Therapy balls are a great release for those areas that I simply cannot access on my own otherwise.
I find this almost unbearably painful, and I had thought this was because I am new to the Yoga-Tune Up balls but now I am thinking it is more due to whatever resistance I’ve built up there due to issues that need that attention! Working through the hips was so much more manageable so I think it is just in this area in particular that I need to ease into the use of the balls and work towards releasing whatever I’ve got going on there (chronic issues with the upper back/shoulders/neck). I’m taking this pain as a sign to take it easy but take extra time here!