In this post I’m going to show you how to use the tennis ball to mobilize the muscles in the hand. This includes the the longer finger tendons, as well as, the muscles of the thumb and pinky finger. The goal with this mobilization is to anchor one end of the muscle down and then actively stretch out the rest of the muscle against it.
Key Points
1) Go back and read the massage post specifically on the hand itself to review the body landmarks and muscles in this region. There are three basic regions you will need to be able to locate to perform these mobilization techniques. They are the thenar emimince (these are the muscles for the thumb), the hypothenar eminence (these are the muscles for the pinky finger), and the area in between where the long finger tendons sneak through. In other words, you’re looking for the the 3 yellow X’s in the picture below as the areas you’ll want to work on.
2) To perform this mobilization, you’re going to need a tennis ball and a table top/raised surface to work on. The basic idea is to apply pressure to the hand on one of the three yellow x’s and to then try to open the hand/fingers up Remember, only go as far as you can comfortably. You’re not trying to force these! If this is too much or the spot is too tender, start with the wrist straight and work your way up to applying more pressure. See the video below for full details and demonstration.
3) Repeat for 10 reps.
4) Same warm up rules apply. Try to do this either following a workout or warm up the area with the foam roller first. Especially if you’re coming back from an injury or this is a problem area.