- Say goodbye to back pain with this one stretch!
- And learn how your hip flexors,
those muscles that bring your knee up like that,
can be part of the problem,
and an easy way to fix it.
(bright music)
Alright, when it comes to back pain,
sometimes you need to look at other areas of the body
where the pain is actually causing the problem.
In this case, back pain here, on Sam.
Just relax, Sam, but the two forgotten hip flexors,
in my mind, are they connect from the pelvis
all the way down to the knee,
and what we need to do is actually stretch those,
relax those so that the pelvis goes in the right position,
therefore taking the stress off the back,
and there goes your back pain, out the door.
- So, if your hip flexor muscles are tight,
it's gonna pull your pelvis downward,
or this is called an anterior pelvic tilt.
What this does is put increased pressure on your low back,
your spine, and your nerves in this area,
increasing your lordotic curve.
- Which cause compression forces.
I know this is something I experience,
and particularly, the people with stenosis in their back
will probably feel this even sooner
and with more pain.
- So, for beginners, Bob is gonna demonstrate
the stretch we're gonna do.
So, he's gonna bring both knees to the chest
and make sure his back
is feeling comfortable in that position.
Then-
- Oh, I just wanted to emphasize, that position's
the back flat into the bed.
You'll probably be doing this on your bed.
- And then he is gonna bring one leg down slowly
to touch the mat while holding this leg up.
If this feels good, you can progress to the next step.
If this is bothersome, do not progress yet.
It is too early.
- So, what you're gonna feel
is a stretch on this hip right in this area.
Again, like Mike said, if it's painful,
if it's too much of a stretch, you're not gonna progress.
- So, if the first stretch felt good,
this is the same stretch,
except for Bob moved closer to the edge of the mat.
If you do not have a firm mattress at home,
like, you're gonna fall off.
Maybe you have a large dining room table,
you can do this on there as well.
So, Bob is gonna start with both knees to the chest
and he's gonna lower one leg down.
We're just gonna do the same side.
Now, Bob is doing a good job of keeping his leg lined up.
You do not want it to go too far out or too far in,
and he also wants to keep
this knee pulled towards his chest.
As you can see, if he's tight and he pulls up,
his leg wants to pop up,
so he's a little tight in his hip flexors.
- Do you feel that, Bob?
- I sure do.
- That's right.
Now, I should go like this,
and I could really give you an extra stretch,
but most of the time, that's
for the professionals to do, so just do this as so.
- Also, you wanna make sure, Bob's knee
is bent to 90 degrees,
if you can handle that.
If that feels too tight or you start quivering in your leg,
that means your hip flexors are too tight,
so you can relax a little more.
If Bob feels comfortable in this position,
he could eventually slide his butt all the way
to the edge of the mat, getting even more of a stretch.
- Alright, so Bob actually shifted forward,
his knee farther off the edge of the bed,
and he's getting a more aggressive stretch,
and again, the more this foot comes underneath
or towards the bed,
you're gonna feel that stretch quite a bit more,
so just use that as your way to adjust the stretch.
The goal is three times for 30 seconds each.
You may not start that way,
maybe only 10 seconds three times,
but build yourself up as the muscle stretch,
causing that back pain to relax through time.
Alright, once again, we end another episode
with our famous lines.
Be healthy.
- Be happy.
- And be.
- Helpful.
- Helpful. Yeah, well, we're working on the ending.
We'll get her down in a couple more episodes.
- I got it.
(bright music)