One of the most common things, things I hear about is back pain. The majority of low back pain comes from sitting and most people have a hard time relieving back pain as well. It’s so common today to be sitting a lot throughout the day. We sit at work, we sit in their car, we sit to watch Netflix, we sit at dinner, there’s a lot of sitting going on. Even with all that sitting going on, we can put an end to the pain with four exercises to relieve back pain and bulletproof your back!
The low back itself is not one of our more stronger muscles, so that’s where a lot of the low back pain comes from. The four movements I’m going to go over will help fix that low back pain and get your stronger.
Pain Reliever 1: The Curl Up
The first of our four exercises to relieve back pain is the curl up. This is not a sit up with a bunch of dynamic movement, but rather fairly static. To do the Curl Up, you will lay on your back with one leg extended and the other bent. As you lie down, bring one hand under your low back with your palm on the ground, this will give you direct feedback.
From here, all we’re looking to do is we’re going to raise our head and shoulders slightly off the ground for about 10 seconds and hold that position. Then lower yourself back down and repeat for 3-5 total repetitions. Make sure your lower back stays in hard contact with your hand, core should remain engaged the whole time.
Pain Reliever 2: The Side Plank
The next one here is our side plank. For the side plank, you will want your elbow placed right under your shoulder and your ankles, knees, hips and shoulders to all be on top of each other. This will ensure your body is in a perfectly straight line from head to toe.
From here, we want to engage our shoulder that has our elbow on the ground, brace our core, and lift our hips up off the ground. Once the hips are up off the ground, we are gonna hold that for 15-30 seconds per side.
Pain Reliever 3: The Bird Dog
The third of our four exercises to relieve back pain is called a Bird Dog. So we’re going to get down on all fours with hands and knees on the ground. Now we’re going to extend our opposite arm and our opposite leg out.
When you’re doing this, it’s not about seeing how high you can raise the leg just stick it straight back hold it out for a couple seconds. before you bring your arm and leg back to the start position.
If your balance is not quite there you can do this option with just extending a leg out. And then over time you can go to the arm and the leg together. So these three movements here is actually is what’s called the McGill big three. Dr. Stuart McGill is a back specialist and recommends these three movements for anybody who has back pain.
Doing these three movements will build strength all around.
Pain Reliever 4: Sciatic Nerve Flossing
So the fourth one here is not so much for strength, but if you have sciatic issues. The way you know if you have a sciatic problem is if your back pain goes all the way down to your feet.
So what we’re going to do is called sciatic nerve flossing. You will now want to go ahead and lay down and grab the back of your leg, hamstring. And then all you’re going to do is pull your upper body towards your leg and simultaneously extend the leg you are grabbing. As you extend your leg, point your toe towards your head and then relax the leg back to the start position. You will want to repeat that process for 15-20 reps or so.
So this one is only if you’re feeling that sciatic nerve problem, like I said you’ll feel it in the low back and it’ll actually go all the way down your leg. A lot of times you feel it in the toes.
Relieve Back Pain For Good
If back pain has been an issue in the past or you are currently dealing with it, make time to add in the McGill big three as well as the sciatic flossing. Do those a couple of times a week and that will start to fix or prevent your back pain.
Like I said, down the road the goal is to add in some resistance training to help make sure that pain doesn’t come back.
Contact Us
We have personally helped our gym members stay pain free or get out of what seemed to be chronic back pain by implementing these exercises and smart programming into their training. If you are looking for a gym in Topeka that knows how to get your strong and keep you healthy, Lionheart APF is for you! Click the Link –> https://lionheartapf.com/join/ to join now!