Jason Day does WHAT to help his aching back?

Jason Day first two days at the Masters were no joke, but he couldn’t help laughing at himself after the second round Friday.

The 31-year-old Australian was tied for the lead at 7-under when play was stopped Friday at 5:14 p.m. despite struggling with a back injury in the first two rounds. When Day was asked how he addresses his lingering back problems, he couldn’t help but laugh at himself.

“This is going to sound really weird,” he began.

“I have to get my ribcage back in position. So my ribcage is out of position, so you have your pelvic floor, your ribcage, and the bottom of your mouth,” he continued. “This is my trainer talking, not me. This comes straight from him. So my ribcage ‑‑ when my back was sore last week, my ribcage was out, and I was kind of aligned ‑‑ my left shoulder was high, I think it was, and if you look at the back line of where my pants are on the back, you could see that my hips were kind of shifted and tilted. I blow into balloons in certain positions to try and get my ribcage down, but then also I’ve got these other exercises that are trying to get space in the joint with regards to my hips and my back and my shoulders, and that takes about 30 minutes in the morning ‑‑ 20 or 30 minutes in the morning and 20 or 30 minutes at night. And then I go see my chiro, and sometimes it’s 10 minutes and sometimes it’s 20 or 30 minutes, so there’s a good hour, and you obviously have to go out and warm up and make sure everything’s good.”

The balloon thing was the weirdest, Day admitted.

“This is very new to me, actually. It sounds very insane when you’re sitting there,” he said. “I flew down to Florida this last week, and I met my trainer, and we’re in the pilot’s lounge and there’s two pilots, you know, sitting next to me ‑‑ or I’m laying on the ground and they are sitting there, and I’m blowing these balloons up. And as you set the balloons go, it sounds like you’ve let one go, right? So every 30 seconds, I would be letting the balloons out, and these guys are looking at me very strange. I’m just doing whatever I can to feel good. So if blowing in balloons is what I need to do to feel good, then I will do it all day long.”

Day has struggled with back pain for most of his career. His most recent flare up happened when he bent down to kiss his daughter leaving the putting green on the way to the first tee for Thursday’s first round.

“They didn’t even come to the putting green today,” he said ruefully.

This story was originally published April 12, 2019 at 5:15 PM.