Consider This Your Date With a Massage Ball To Relieve Your Tight Neck and Shoulders
Self-massage and stretching can be useful for short-term comfort, but the mechanism is probably more about changing muscle tone, body awareness and tolerance to movement than โbreaking upโ tissue in a dramatic way. That matters because it sets realistic expectations: these routines may help you feel looser, yet they are not a cure for the habits that created the tension in the first place.
The articleโs biggest practical value is its emphasis on combining several levers at once: brief movement, targeted pressure, chest opening and slower breathing. That sequence is sensible because neck and shoulder tightness often reflects a whole posture-and-activity pattern rather than one isolated muscle. In real life, the best results may come from using a few minutes of rolling or stretching as a reset between long screen sessions, not as a standalone fix.
There is also a useful safety point hidden in the advice to avoid intense pain. Pressure tools can be helpful, but they should feel like tolerable discomfort rather than a hard, forced release. If symptoms include numbness, tingling, radiating pain or frequent headaches, that suggests something beyond ordinary stiffness and deserves more careful assessment.
Breathing during the routine is another underrated piece. Slow, controlled exhalation may help reduce guarding and make stretching feel easier, although the exact effect is not identical for everyone. The main takeaway is modest but practical: use the ball, stretch and breathe as part of a movement break, while also addressing the underlying need for more frequent position changes, not just temporary relief.
How to relieve neck and shoulder tension with stretching and massage
Get your blood flowing before stretching
Think of it as the pre-game to the party. For your muscles to be able to lengthen and disentangle during a stretch, they need lubrication and to be neurologically alert. This is calledย moving from cold muscles to warm musclesโitโs a literal warm-up. You want to promote blood flow to the muscles in question so they donโt become even stiffer as a protective mechanism when theyโre asked to stretch. Some jumping jacks, jogging in place, arm circles, or anything that elevates your heart rate slightly and gets your blood pumping should do the trick.Use a massage ball (or tennis ball) to work on tension points
Since your ability or lack thereof to twist like a pretzel may make digging into the key muscles in your shoulders and upper back physically impossible, a massage or tennis ball can come in handy to help. โMassage balls can help us get a little deeper into the connective tissue and muscles to release those tight structures than passive stretching can sometimes get,โ Spencer says. By using the leverage of the floor and the weight of your body, you can spend some time on the spots that are โgiving you a little bit of feedback,โ as Spencer puts it. โJust a little moment of like, oh yeah, I need a little love there,โ Spencer says. โThis should never be like a very deep, intense pain. That being said, if it is giving you a little bit of feedback, itโs often where you need it the most.โTarget your trapezius muscles aka traps
The large muscles that span from the back of your neck down the insides of your shoulder blades are your trapezius muscles, and they are often the culprit when it comes to neck and shoulder tension. โWhen we sit at our desk and the head pulls forward at our laptops and computers, the shoulders start to get very tense because those upper traps help to elevate the shoulders,โ Spencer says. โWe tend to go ahead and lean forward over our computers, bring the shoulders to our ears, and really add tension to these guys.โ Lying on your back, place the ball at the base of your neck and roll it across your shoulder and down the sides of your spine to help relieve tension in your traps.Get into the shoulder blade
Allow that ball to find a nook on the inside of your shoulder blade, and then move your arms up and over your head and across your body so the ball slowly changes position. Working on joint mobility through those shoulder movements will actually translate into less crunchy-feeling muscles. For example, as youโre moving your arms up and over while working on the shoulder blades with the tennis ball, Spencer explains โthese muscles help to elevate our shoulders and they can get very cranky with overhead movement. So finding this is really helpful for kind of trying to release that muscle group through lots of range of motion.โ This video with trainer Charlee Atkins, CSCS, is a great place to start learning how to release muscle tension with a small ball: [link ]Donโt ignore the chest
Chest opening moves may not seem like theyโre directly working on tight neck and shoulders, but theyโre all part of the same ecosystem. โOur pecs get really tight when we sit at our computers,โ Spencer says. โOur head pulls forward and our shoulders draw together.โ This shortens the muscles in your chest, which causes your shoulders and upper body to round inward even more. This stretch session from Spencer starts with a nice chest opening series:ย [link ]Connect to your breath
As you target areas of high tension, your muscles may want to clam up and tense against the massage ball. Spencer says breathing through those moments can help you make the most of these sessions. โReally connect to your breath,โ Spencer says. โThat breath does help calm our nervous system. It also helps the muscles to know that itโs okay to relax.โRe-enforce the feeling of openness
After youโve spent some time working out the kinks with a massage ball, Spencer recommends doing some basic neck and shoulder stretches like crossing one arm in front of the other, tilting your neck from side to side, and interlacing your fingers behind your head as you open up your chest, to create space in this high-traffic area. โI always like to take some stretches after rolling out, kind of giving the muscles another chance to breathe,โ he says.Enjoyed this article? Sign up for our newsletter to receive regular insights and stay connected.