Whether you’re a fitness enthusiast, high-end athlete, or purely want to keep your body supple, massage is a great way to improve mobility, optimize athletic performance and enhance your life.

Tight muscles, knots, and adhesions come about in many ways: rigorous training, poor posture, etc. To seek relief, you don’t have to visit a massage therapist. Instead, invest in a couple self-massage tools that can enable you to free-up tight muscles on your own.

Below we highlight five of our favorite at-home massage tools and how each is used to effectively mimic certain massage techniques. So save yourself costly massage therapy sessions, and scope out some of the tools we highlight below.

1. The Stick

The Stick will help you tackle areas that foam rollers don’t. The foam roller relies on the pressure generated by your body weight. However, with this option, you are pressing in with your own muscles, so you dictate the level of intensity. Use it in areas where your body weight won’t bring long-lasting results.

Check out the stick by visiting TheStick.com.

2. The Rumble Roller

To aim precisely on the knotted muscle fibers, you need to use a thumb-like movement on those areas. But if a massage therapist is not available at the time, you can use this tool instead, and your muscles will loosen up, tension will go away to make you feel relaxed once again.

The Rumble Roller is much more aggressive compared to its counterpart, the foam roller, because of the ability to penetrate deeper into the muscle tissues and precisely target trigger joints. If you’re a high level athlete, check out the Rumble Roller by Rogue Fitness.

3. Massage Balls

Your self-massage arsenal should include a lacrosse ball, or two. Although there are many different massage-specific balls available, the lacrosse ball is cheap and highly effective. The benefit of owning this massage tool is that you can use it on any part of your body.

For instance, you can massage your hamstrings, calves, glutes, shoulder, chest and so forth. They have a tendency of targeting deep tissues that rollers just can’t quite reach.

Lacrosse balls are designed to mimic the deep massage pressure of an elbow or a thumb. They also offer pressure that’s really firm, plus the outer fibrous layer helps to keep the ball in one place. They offer the best trigger-point massage therapy at home.

4. Trigger Point’s GRID Foam Roller

Just like the name suggests, this massage tool targets specific points where you feel tightness. When you visit a massage therapist, they will give a deep tissue massage, and this is always painful, though beneficial especially when they press into specific joints using their thumb or elbow, holding until the tension releases. Now, this is the exact massage tool you use to achieve this on your own.

It lets you release pain and tension in your shoulders as well as in the trapezius muscles. It also tackles the large erector muscles in your glutes and on the back. Massage pressure is also regulated by you, so you can deep in or ease out as you feel comfortable.

5. The Still Point Inducer

You’ll find that the Still Point Inducer is a godsend where neck pain is concerned. If you tend to experience tension headaches or neck tightness, this is the right tool for you. With this massage therapy tool, simply lay down and place it under your neck – right under the base of your skull. Just lay down for about 5 minutes.

With the Still Point Inducer, you’ll feel your head, neck and body unwind mysteriously. To spice up things, keep the foam roller beneath your knees so that your spine is positioned appropriately. You’ll feel even more relaxed.

With the five self-massage options above, you can be your own N8 Touch Bloomington, IL massage therapist without subjecting yourself to injury. These tools are also portable enough to carry around as they can fit inside a standard-size travel bag. Take charge of your own health.