The Big Squeeze -- Have A Ball For Stress Or Strength

A FEW YEARS AGO, A FRIEND IN OHIO sent this funny ball: red, a little smaller than a tennis ball, with six cup-shaped nobs spaced evenly around it.

He said the ball was for sharpening reflexes. Let it drop and try to catch it, he said. The nobs would make it bounce wildly, like a superball gone berserk.

It was sort of fun, for a few minutes anyhow. Then it mostly sat around the apartment gathering dust, in the pile with assorted weights and old jump ropes.

A few months back, another friend called with these instructions: Go to Zenith Supplies (6300 Roosevelt Way N.E., 525-7997). Buy a certain little green ball. Squeeze it. Step on it. See what happens. (Do your friends do these kinds of things to you?)

The green ball, I was surprised to see, looks like a baby version of the red one. Yet the two balls have little to do with each other, linked only by their shape and a strange etymological quirk: The red one is for reflexes, the green one for reflexology.

Officially, the green one is called the Magic Reflex Massager. Produced by Stirling Enterprises of Cottage Grove, Ore., it was designed by Mildred Carter. She's been called the Grandmother of Reflexology.

A healing and relaxation technique perhaps older than acupuncture, reflexology is based on a system that sees "reflex" points in the feet, hands and ears linked to all the major parts of the body. Applying pressure to the reflex points is supposed to increase energy to the related area.

Bodyworkers also use the little green balls for massage. My friend had been to see Annette Silvernale, a licensed massage practitioner who works in a couple of clinics in Seattle (547-4427 or 443-1868).

"It actually hurts like hell to use it," said Silvernale, "but immediately afterwards I have them walk, and they say, `My God, I feel so much lighter.' "

Like many local bodyworkers, Silvernale learned about "the little green ball" (as they all call it) from Catherin Maxwell (524-6123), a naturopathic doctor who also teaches at the Brian Utting School of Massage.

Maxwell sort of laughs when asked about all this.

"I am the inventor of green-ball therapy," she says, "but it doesn't have to be green and it doesn't have to have knobs on it. I think any hard rubber ball would do it" for deep-tissue work, although the nobs may help as far as reflexology goes.

Maxwell says she's used the little green ball to help develop fallen arches and treat plantar facscitis. That kind of treatment probably takes a specialist's help. But anyone can pick up a little green ball (they're $9.95 at Zenith) for some self-massage. I've never failed to get some release of tension or stiffness by squeezing or stepping on one, even if it can be a little painful.

If you're more interested in pain-free squeezing pleasure, The Dead Ball seems to be a hot item.

Designed by a local tennis teacher, it started out as a rehab device for tennis elbow. More than two years, 100,000 Deadballs and several imitators later, Geoffrey O'Connor, 40, has stopped teaching tennis, and his invention is probably used more as a stress reducer than an arm strengthener. Microsoft is one of his biggest corporate clients.

"Physicians I know," O'Connor says, "used to cringe when I'd mention giving old beat-up tennis balls to people with tennis elbow." Too hard to squeeze, they said. O'Connor spent a couple of years coming up with a gentler alternative, filled with three kinds of grains ("from Eastern Washington") and covered with five layers of natural latex. They're $9.95, through O'Connor (723-3731) or sports shops such as Athletic Supply.

My first Deadball was kidnapped by a co-worker who is fending off repetitive stress injuries. Another office mate has his eye on my second. Clearly, once folks pick them up, they don't like to put 'em down. There's something soothing about the feeling of the latex and the grains inside. It's like playing with Silly Putty, except the stuff doesn't ooze out between the fingers (and is worthless for picking up color comics). O'Connor confessed that his actual inspiration for The Deadball was recreating the feeling he loved as a kid, squeezing the bag of brown sugar while his mother was making chocolate-chip cookies.

Anyhow, now I have a Deadball and a little green ball at home, and another set at the office. So far, they're staying pretty much dust-free.

Molly Martin is assistant editor of Pacific.