A Peanut can be a great tool to use on trigger points, especially for back pain and increasing range of movement (ROM). Here we discuss how to DIY make one at home and how to correctly use a peanut tool at home.
Making a DIY Peanut Tool from tennis balls
A Peanut is a mobility tool used to mobilise the spine and surrounding soft tissues. Simple and easy to make at home, the video below shows you how.
It’s important to mobilise your own spine, most people do that using a foam roller. This can be done either in the gym or at home. However, there is a little tool called a Peanut. It’s called this because it looks like a Peanut. But here’s the secret, you can make one of these tools at home with just two ingredients!
A DIY Peanut tool is just two really firm tennis balls attached together with some duct-tape tape. The best trick is to use two cheap tennis balls, so they’re nice and firm.
You want to get the two tennis balls stuck together nice and firmly. You can do this by placing the tennis balls together and really firmly bring the duct tape over and around. Repeat this a couple of times until you’ve got the shape of the peanut.
Just remember that not all Peanuts are created equal but they will do the job. Now to put your Peanut to use.
How to use a Peanut tool on trigger points
The correct way to use a peanut mobility tool so as to increase spinal mobility. Rolling up and done in a massage technique is not as effective as gently rocking over one spinal segment at a time.
Now we’re going to show you how to best use the Peanut to increase your mobility. A lot of people use Peanuts as a massager. Though we don’t want to use it as a massager, we want to use it as a tool to get your spine moving better.
Basically, you want to get the groove between the two tennis balls and position your spine over it while laying on your back. Then, proceed to rock your spine backwards and forwards on one area.
We don’t want to use it as a massager – moving up and down the spine – we just want to rock the spine over one segment. Watch the video below to find out how.
Once you’ve rocked in one place for about a minute or two, move to another segment and then rock backwards and forwards in the one area. The good thing about this is that the tennis balls will actually target those muscles in between and alongside the spine.
Once you’ve done that for about 10 minutes, you’re pretty much done and that’s a great way to mobilise a spine.