Melt Shoulder Tension: The Most Common Trigger Point

This audio is a recording of a live Myofascial Release Yoga session focusing on the shoulders. You will be guided through gentle techniques to release tension, improve mobility, and reconnect with this often overworked area of the body. As this track contains only voice instructions, you are welcome to play your own soft background music if that supports your relaxation.

For this short 20 minute taster session, please prepare two balls of similar size (such as tennis balls), a yoga block, and optionally a folded towel for support. The practice is suitable for all levels and offers a simple way to experience how targeted fascial release can ease stiffness and create more openness in the upper body.

Transcript

Good morning everyone.

Hello,

Nice to see you.

We'll be doing myofascial release yoga today and that's a really beautiful technique to release tension in your body and to create more awareness within your body.

So for everyone who's new here,

First of all welcome.

I'm Ellie,

I'm a yoga teacher,

Reiki master,

Shamanic practitioner,

Shamanic breathwork master practitioner and transformational guide.

I'm here based in Bali and I guide professionals and conscious leaders in bringing their life back into balance and for them to come back into their full power so that they can lead by example and lead from their authenticity and hopefully bring a shift into the world with the people that they can impact in their work life and life in general.

And part of that what I do with them as well is making sure your body is in a good state and that includes having a lot of mobility and flexibility,

Just feeling very comfortable in your body with all without all those constant aches and pains and tensions that come with it if we don't take care of our body and for that is myofascial release a perfect tool.

It is very easy,

It is super efficient and it can be done on a regular basis.

It doesn't mean that you need a 60-90 minutes class every day like you have that with other yoga styles I would say but it can be very effective just you know a five-minute thing every day on a regular basis if you have a chronic tension somewhere can go a long way and that's really what I recommend on a regular basis not just when we are here live and that's also why I'm working on courses for you so any donation that you're giving me today helps me keeping motivated to show up here and prepare content for more premium content as well that you have accessible while I'm not available live so thanks already ahead of time for any support to make that happen.

For anyone who does the class today and wants to practice not just watch is we need props,

Two balls of some sort.

Tennis balls are good enough if you already have some sort of release balls or cork balls feel free to grab them as well.

I recommend a size that's like the palm which is why a tennis ball is ideal and cheap and frequently available in pretty much every household so two of those and possibly a buck and I also recommend in my description to have a cushion and a towel handy because depending on what ball you have if it's a cork ball or something like a baseball ball they are really hard and sometimes that's just too intense for what we're going to do so if at any time we are in a pose where you cannot further reduce your body weight to rest on the ball comfortably please use the cushion or the towel on top of the ball so you have some extra padding and that makes it more comfortable because you will be working with your own body weight here which also means only you decide how much pressure and how much weight you have on this ball and that will define how you can work through the tension.

The importance here is that you're not applying too much pressure because then your body will go into pain we don't want pain because if that happens your body comes into protection mode and it will not allow the tension to release so in my official release less is more.

Be kind to your body,

Be gentle,

Really listen in how much pressure is enough and how much is too much especially if this is your first time go test the waters but be more on the gentler side today as we're going to work on the shoulder neck area if you have disc issues in those areas please do not work in that areas I can see you I give you personalized advice if you had any surgery in that area also don't work there sunburn is also recommended to stay away just so that your skin has enough time to recover.

All right I think that's enough said as a prep talk before we start I invite you to find a comfortable position and to briefly close your eyes just for a minute and close your eyes connect with your breath maybe give it a nice sigh and I invite you to arrive in your body in this present moment feeling how your natural breathing works in and out and just feel into the area of your shoulders of your neck just notice what is present there right now can you already feel attention can you even connect with that area just notice what is present and then reopen your eyes welcome again please grab your two balls we will start in our mid shoulder section first we work with both balls at the same time and we want to start having them literally between our shoulder blades so when you put your arms around you see where your shoulder blades are coming out that is where we want to place these balls right in the middle and you can choose to do that position them as you either lay down on the floor or you can actually stand up or sit and lean against the wall I'll actually might just do that leaning against the ball first you can just do that sometimes it's actually easier to define the body weight that way and once you're there you just press your body weight against it I said you can do that on the floor as well it's the same principle and I'll come to the floor soon as well just if this is the first time you might be here this might be an easier option for you or if your shoulders are very tight this might be a more gentle version for you as well so if you haven't tried this option before please do and see how that works for your body because I find when you sit or stand against the wall it just gives you a bit more flexibility in the pressure that you're applying because it depends on how close you stand to the wall with your hip or if you want to apply a bit of an angle with your hip and then you can have more pressure towards the ball if you're more of an angle you have more body weight leaning if you're a bit more straight and parallel to the wall you have less body weight so even this way you have an angle that you can play with and then all you do is you simply move either up or down left and right to find those juicy spots in your shoulders and even on the floor you do the same I'm going to just come down on the floor so you get an idea how that looks like just in case so just coming down on the floor this way and allowing my head to come down the other way if possible if that's already juicy for you again you have the towel you have the cushion hopefully handy and place that on top of the balls so that it's more comfortable for you if even with that you're uncomfortable please come to the wall space but if you're here you simply initially stay in the center where you are and then just gently move and glide your body a little bit up and a little bit down so those balls that are under your body are basically gliding along the spinal muscle and if you're moving to the left and to the right you do what we call a cross-fibering across the spinal muscle so you're 90 degrees over the spinal muscle and I can give a different flavor of identifying where you have tension and a different flavor of releasing I invite you to move very slowly so you really feel the differences of every centimeter of your body weight and you can really tune in consciously you're not applying too much pressure you're adjusting every time you move if needed and you use most importantly when you find a spot that's sensitive I invite you to stay with that spot give that spot some care some attention and stay with it with the right level of body weight and then work with your breath in through the nose and out through the ideally you exhale a little bit longer than you inhale so that it gets signaling to the body that you can relax and yeah sometimes rolling is actually very relaxing to certain degrees while you are you know you have your tension points and trigger points and it might be intense in that moment but we want to get away from the intensity and just work in the gentle space and that can also include for me when I release I sometimes need to yawn it's already there I have tension in my shoulders as well and that's just how my body works with going through the release so just be open to how your body releases whether it's a yawn as well or maybe just a deep sigh that wants to come out or a bit of a tone that wants to come out or just a chance of relaxing on whatever point you are there is no specific duration that you need to stay in one particular point it's very different for each of you and for each point that you identify it's more that you tune in stay wherever it's uncomfortable stay within just a level of uncomfort not pain and then with time that uncomfort will reduce it will create some softness it will create some ease a lightness yet also now depending on how chronic your tension is it will not magically go away with a five minute roll okay it takes patience it takes attention so just stay in between the shoulders and as you see I just naturally actually move my arms up so you can depending how you place your arms also impact how these balls feel I like to just play with the arms randomly and just see how that impacts the feeling of the balls underneath and then when I find it's an interesting spot I just stay again allow that gravity of the arm together with the time and the breath to change you can open your arms to the side you can hold them comfortably over your body and just move different directions because anything you move here slightly moves your upper body and then you get into different flavors I also encourage you to feel into when you're working through a trigger point when you hold that spot and when you breathe if you notice if the tension goes into different parts of your body because we have the fascia is one big web it's connected through our entire body and we have those fascial lines that connect different parts with one another so sometimes when you have a tension of one point you just notice it traveling to a different point and then these are connected and it shows you how the fascia webs through your body all right and then coming to completion here on our shoulder blade section and if you are on the on the floor just maybe roll off to one side so you can remove the balls under your body we'll come into a little bit of a rebound moment and if you're on the wall just lean away remove the balls you just stay seated or come to the floor whichever you prefer and the rebound minute is really there to feel into the area you've just worked on so between the shoulder plates notice what is now shifting maybe you feel there's a warmth coming back in there is the liquids that we've just pressed out with the balls is coming back in your fascia is rehydrating maybe you feel hopefully a bit of a shift the lightness and this rebound is also there if that part needs any gentle movement any aftercare please honor and give the body part that aftercare sometimes in the shoulder area that can mean maybe you want to sit up and roll your shoulders and stretch your shoulders one way or another just feel into what your body needs right now that's what my fascia release is all about for you to create more body awareness to feel when you need to do what that also means you're going to connect deeper with your intuition it will be easier for you to know what your body needs that also includes what food it needs because your communication with your body will become so much more clear over time okay enough of rebound let's come to our next area which will be our upper shoulder area so two balls still and we'll move up to our upper shoulder area so the upper trap area so we want to have the ball somewhere in that fleshy part between the shoulder plate and the spine so that's our upper trap muscles left and right at the same time so basically when you hug yourself where your fingertips land that's where you want to place the ball closer to the spinal muscle so that we can really work on the upper shoulder area again you can do that against the ball if you like to or you can come down on the floor and just place these balls one on the left side one on the right side and just position them to start with gently and see how that feels like with your body weight on them if that's already juicy and sensitive again you have the towel you have the cushion to make it softer if you feel that's not enough pressure you can simply lift up your hip either hold your hip up with the strength of your legs or if you've got a block you just allow that block to rest under your sacrum so that your hip is safe and supported and can rest yet it's elevated compared to the shoulder and with that elevation you're naturally adding a bit more body weight up to the shoulder space so with that you can then either just stay there or also include movements in your hands which i recommend or in the arms first bring them up into the air and then just wriggle your upper body left and right whichever way and see discover where the tension is that's what you're scanning here for you can also use your hands at any given time to reposition these balls because as you're moving maybe they're going too high up and almost shoot off we don't want to have that but as you're moving here you're not just working on your shoulder muscles you're also working on your neck and on your head so these muscle groups are connected so if you have headache that upper shoulder area is frequently already tensed up and that may lead into tension across your neck into tension across your skull and that leads to a headache so it's very important here to tune in and see how far you can feel a release happening how far you feel the connection of those tension going and to release again you stay with ever point you notice that is sensitive to the pressure you stay there you give it attention you give it some care and some love and then i recommend to bring the arms up into the air first point towards the ceiling and then bring those arms slowly down over your head that will activate your upper trap muscles which is where the balls lay exactly so it will feel a bit intense and you might not be able to bring those arms down all the way to the floor which is okay you just stay wherever it starts to tense up and you allow the gravity and the breath to open up that muscle and that particular position if you are able to come down to the floor maybe you can opening up the arms to the side bending the elbows just gives me a different flavor of the muscle groups up here and you can still move your upper body slightly up slightly down but again these are just the movement parts are really just to explore where is the next tension the most important part is to stay with the tension and then allow time and breath to work through that that's where the magic happens and that's why i'm inviting people to move very slowly and consciously so that you can feel where those tension starts and how much body weight you need and then give yourself the patience to breathe through the tension breathing means in through the nose out through an open mouth allow that tension to literally leave your system and allow softness to come in you decide how long you stay in a point how much body weight you apply and when it's enough time to have noticed the shift to move on we have another minute or so in this part so use any movement of your upper body to identify different parts of the body to rest on the balls to feel their pressure so you can identify new areas of interest maybe stop with this last space and give it some gentle breaths here and then we come to completion here on this spot as well if you are elevated with your hip with the block please lift your hip up remove the block and now you have to come down safely and then remove the balls from under your shoulders coming into rebound again meaning to feel into the upper shoulder area that we've just worked on maybe you notice a warmth to come back that's the extra blood that is free calibrating and coming back into your flesh because with the pressure of these balls we're pressing out a lot of liquids so as soon as the pressure goes up all our cells are reabsorbing any liquids that they normally need to have we are also pressing out a lot of toxins so it's important for you to really drink some extra water today to support a natural detox happening and to make sure your system can reabsorb good hydration take a few more breaths here and maybe you want to feel like make your way up into a seated position and just zoom back into your shoulders maybe there are some rollings that want to happen some stretches forward rounding the upper body i'm just rolling your shoulders one way another it's just a little bit of final aftercare circling your shoulders and with that that's it already for today i invite you to have a few more minutes rest in a rebound or in the Savasana to just allow all the movement that have just happened to really integrate and take some deeper breaths into that space as well you might feel that you are able to breathe into the back of your body now that you've released some tension just notice the shifts that have happened with this very brief exercise normally my classes in person are 90 minutes but if you felt these exercises just helped you please give it a few more minutes stay on your shoulder area to give it a bit more attention to really work on the tension that you've noticed with that i'm saying massive thank you for having been here please let me know if the chat how you're feeling i'm obviously always appreciated of donation as well as i said i'm working on recording some courses and classes for you so you can tune in whenever it's youtube and not just when i'm online live so that it helps you working through the tension in your body with that said if you have particular areas that you want me to cover in those courses please feel free to send me a dm i'm very appreciative of input so that i can make content that's valuable for you and actually i've already put up one free talk about what my pressure release is and it also explains a little bit about my own journey with my official release and why i'm so passionate about this practice and how it has helped me recovering from a sports injury that created tension all over my body so feel free to give it a listen it's on my profile it's a free track it's like 10-11 minutes so not too long and gives high level information about my official release with all that said thank you again for having been here please follow me so you get my upcoming classes get a notification about that and whenever tracks or classes will come up and feel free to send me any messages you have any requests on contents you may have have a beautiful rest of your day and i shall see you very very soon

Reviews

That was wonderful! Detailed directions and loved having the different options to adjust the intensity of the balls.