Can massage balls help with muscle pain?
Massage balls are often suggested as a simple way to ease muscle pain.
They can be helpful — but not in the way people often expect.
This article explores when they help, when they don’t, and how to approach them without pressure or performance.
Steven Murdoch
How hard should I press?
This is one of the most common questions people ask — and it’s a very reasonable one.
Most of us have learned that if something feels tight or painful, the answer must involve more pressure. Press harder. Stay longer. Push through.
But if massage balls are going to help with muscle pain, it’s usually not because of how hard you press.
The same applies to foam rollers. In fact, when I mention foam rolling to people, I can often see an immediate reaction. Many have had genuinely unpleasant experiences with it. It hurt. It felt like something to endure rather than something that helped.
That’s an important clue.
When massage balls do help muscle pain, it’s rarely because discomfort was forced. It’s usually because the body felt safe enough to reduce protective tension.
A more useful question than how hard should I press? is:
What is the tissue doing in response to this?
As you rest on a ball or roller, signs that it may be helping include:
- the area feeling less dense or less guarded
- the sensation spreading rather than staying sharp and local
- your breathing changing on its own
- a sense that the tissue is allowing the pressure rather than resisting it
If you’re bracing, holding your breath, or waiting for it to be over, massage balls are much less likely to help — even if you can tolerate the pressure.
Used well, massage balls don’t need to be painful to be effective. They can feel surprisingly pleasant — and that’s often when they’re most helpful.
How do I know if something is actually changing?
People often doubt whether massage balls are helping because they’re unsure what they’re meant to feel.
That uncertainty makes sense. We’re often taught to expect a dramatic “release” or a strong sensation if something is working. In practice, when massage balls help muscle pain, the changes are often much more subtle.
First, it helps to know what guarded tissue can feel like.
The tissues involved — fascia, muscle, connective tissue — are influenced not just by pressure, but by the nervous system and by fluid movement. When the body is stressed or holding tension, tissue can feel:
- dense or armoured
- lumpy or nodular
- ropey or restricted
- or sometimes just uniformly hard
This is commonly felt in areas like the shoulders, hips, or buttocks.
It’s also worth knowing that change doesn’t always happen where the pain is felt most strongly.
Pain is often experienced at a point of irritation or friction, rather than at the place where tension is being generated. A good example of this is IT band–related knee pain. The discomfort is very clearly felt on the outside of the knee, but the tissues involved are usually higher up — particularly the muscles of the hip that attach into the IT band.
The IT band itself is meant to be strong and relatively firm. It moves as a single structure. When muscles at the top are holding more tension, that load has to go somewhere, and the irritation is often felt lower down.
So when people work away from the painful spot and notice change, it isn’t random. It reflects how force is transmitted through tissue.
At the same time, how that tension changes still depends on whether the body feels safe enough to let go. Pressure alone doesn’t resolve it — but working in the right place, with the right quality of attention, can.
That’s why it’s often more helpful to think in terms of relationships between tissues, rather than chasing the most painful point.
So what actually tells you something has shifted?
When gentle pressure is applied and the body doesn’t perceive a threat, the nervous system can allow a change in tone. That’s when massage balls are most likely to help.
Signs of that change might include:
- the tissue feeling less hard or less defended
- a sense of softening or melting
- more space or ease in the area
- a feeling of movement or glide that wasn’t there before
- a spontaneous change in breathing, often a longer out-breath
Sometimes the only noticeable change is the breath — and that alone can be enough to reduce muscle pain.
So if you’re wondering whether massage balls are helping, it’s often more useful to notice:
- how the area feels afterwards
- how you move later that day
- whether symptoms settle or flare
Those responses matter more than what you feel in the moment.
What does “release” actually mean?
You’ll sometimes hear people say that massage balls don’t really “release” tissue — and that can sound confusing, especially if you’ve clearly felt something change.
What’s helpful here is to think about how massage balls help muscle pain.
They don’t work by breaking down tissue or removing knots. Instead, they offer information to the nervous system. If the nervous system decides the input is safe, it can allow protective tension to ease.
What people often describe as release is actually:
- a reduction in guarding
- a change in tissue tone
- increased ease or movement
- a sense of settling
As a practitioner, I can feel these shifts very clearly when working with people. When people use massage balls themselves, they notice them in different ways — sometimes through touch, sometimes through movement, sometimes through breath.
So rather than asking whether release is “real”, a more helpful question is:
Do I feel less guarded, less restricted, or more at ease afterwards?
If the answer is yes, then massage balls are helping in the way they’re capable of helping.
A different way of approaching muscle pain
Massage balls can help with muscle pain — but not through force, performance, or perseverance.
They’re most useful as a way of bringing curious, non-threatening attention to the body and observing how it responds. There’s no routine to follow and nothing to get right.
Sometimes they help. Sometimes they don’t. Both responses are useful information.
For people living with persistent pain, including jaw or TMJ-related symptoms, this shift — from doing more to noticing more — is often what makes self-care feel supportive rather than frustrating.
Final reassurance
So yes — massage balls can help relieve muscle pain for some people, some of the time.
They’re not a solution on their own, and they’re not something to push through. But when they’re used in a way that feels safe, curious, and responsive, they can play a useful role in easing tension and reducing sensitivity.
If you’re unsure, cautious, or tired of trying things, that’s completely understandable. You don’t need to force a response — just notice what your body does with the invitation.