In this video, I'm going to show you the three best back
exercises to do every single day to keep pain away. Stay
tuned.
Hey, everyone. Thanks for tuning in to SpineCare with
Dr. Rowe. So, let's jump into the first back exercise.
You should be doing every single day. Great part is you
can do this one first thing in the morning right in bed or on
a floor. It's really good at helping to improve mobility so
you'll have less pains throughout the day. So, I'm
going to start on all fours just like this. My hands are
going to be slightly out in front of me, roughly about
shoulder width. We're going to tuck our chin towards our chest
and now, rock our whole body back. We're taking our towards
our heels. This is known as the child's pose and it is one of
the best exercises you can do for back pain relief. So, keep
going down. You should feel a great stretch form through your
whole back. I pretty much feel it from the base of my neck all
the way down to my tailbone. When I can't go any further,
this is how I'm going to take it to the next level. I'm going
to allow my chest to sag downward towards the back of
the floor really trying to open up the area in between the
shoulder blades and then I'm going to take my fingers and
just crawl forward like this. Again, this is a great stretch.
You want to hold this one comfortably for 20 to 30
seconds and do nice, slow, controlled breathing. Let out
as much tension as you can. From there, you're going to
rock forward, take a breather, relax, and then repeat this one
three times and with each repetition, try to build into
it just a little bit more. Why I really like the child's pose
is because you can now experiment with different
positions to open up the back a little bit more This one is
great if you have one-sided lower back pain. So, whatever
side that you're having back pain, let's say it's your right
side. What you want to do is slightly tilt your shoulders
and hands towards the non-painful side. So, I'm going
a little bit towards my left and then repeat this. You're
going to notice it hits that right side just a little bit
more. So, I would experiment with going towards the left and
also towards the right. You're going to find that one position
just offers you the most relief. At that point, throw
more repetitions in. So, next we're going move on to the
cobra which is going to focus a little bit more on stretching
the core muscles and the hip flexors big instigators of back
pain so for this one we're going to start right on our
stomach a very important note about this exercise we want to
keep our hips and pelvis flat so don't lift up on them like
this during the exercise instead all movement is going
to come through our back like this so let's start with the
half cobra or the baby cobra what I'm going to do is just
support upper body weight onto my forearms like this. They're
roughly in the V shape, I just put my hands together. The goal
with this exercise is to feel a gentle stretch right over your
front core muscles and also into your hip flexors right
here on the front of your thighs. I also feel a little
bit of a stretch right in my lower back but don't go to the
point where it's causing any pain or discomfort. In this
position again, you're going to hold it for 20 to 30 seconds
and do nice, slow control breathing. If you need to
relax, just lower your chest down like I like to do this for
three repetitions build into it with each repetition if this is
a little bit too easy what you can do is go into the full
cobra so you're just going to take your hands put them off to
your side right at shoulder level and then you're just
going to tuck your elbows in and then press your chest up
like this again keeping the hips flat don't raise up on
them the more that you press up the more intense that stretch
is going to get so aim for a great stretch but not causing
any discomfort so that one a try. So, the last movement that
we're going to do is called the scorpion and this is a personal
favorite for many because there's a really good chance
it's going to end in a satisfying self-pop cracker
release in the lower back but don't try to force it. If it
goes, it goes. So, for this one, I'm going to start in that
baby cobra position just resting on my forearms again
but this time around, we're going to put our legs together
and have our knees bent roughly at about 90 degrees. What I'd
like to do is keep my and my chest right here flat and I'm
going to do just a slight rotational movement right here
moving through my lower back and through my hips so I'm just
going to lower my legs down like this as you do this you're
going to feel a great stretch form in your back only go to
the point where it is comfortable and again don't try
to force anything and you're going to hold this position
roughly for three to five seconds you're going to relax
and then repeat on the other side kind of like a pendulum
we're just going to go from side to side about five to 10
repetitions in both directions but if it feels good, you can
definitely throw in as many repetitions as you like but go
through all of these movements. If you find that one is just
helping you out a little bit more. At that point, throw more
repetitions in. So, with this exercise, we're going to focus
on keeping the back loose throughout the day. So, anytime
that you feel pain or tightness start to build, do this one
right away. For this, we need a smooth wall or a door. So, it's
perfect to do right work. You're going to start facing
that door and have your body roughly about one arm length
away. Have your legs hip width apart. Place all of your body
weight onto your heels during this exercise. From here, I'm
going to have my arms roughly shoulder width apart, hands
overhead just like this. We're just going to lean into the
door with our body weight. So, from here, I'm just going to
tuck my chin towards my chest. I'm going to slightly bend my
knees and then I'm going to squat my bottom down and away
from that door. This is known as a standing puppy and it is a
great back opener. The more that you go down, the more that
you're going to feel a great stretch form pretty much from
the upper back all the way down to the lower back. When you
can't go any further, what you're going to do is hold this
and now deepen the stretch by allowing your chest to sag
forward towards the floor and then use your fingers to crawl
upward just a little bit more. Hold this comfortably for 20 to
30 seconds and do nice, slow, controlled breathing. Again,
let that tension out. From there, you can relax, take a
breather, and then repeat this one three times and with each
repetition, try to build into it just a little bit more. So,
just like the child's pose that we did with that first
exercise, what you can do with the standing puppy is
experiment with different angles to help open up the back
just a little bit differently. So, I would give this a try
moving your shoulders and hands towards the left and also
towards the right. If any of those positions offer more
relief, at that point, throw more repetitions in. So, this
is how we're going to take the standing puppy to the next and
focus a little bit more in between the shoulder blades.
What I'm going to do is get back into my original stretch
like this and hold it but I'm going to take one arm off, bend
my elbow roughly at 90 degrees, and now scoop my shoulder blade
and upper back towards the other side. Really focusing on
moving through that shoulder blade. Keep going over as far
as you can. Again, this is really going to help hit right
in between the shoulder blades. Feels really really good. I
like to hold this one for about 10 seconds. I just relax and
then I repeat on the other side. Doing this for about
three repetitions on both sides. So, this exercise is
going to focus more on strengthening. If your focus is
to get long-lasting back pain relief or help prevent it, you
have to strengthen those muscles that help support the
back and I can't think of one better exercise than the bridge
but I'm going to show you how to take the bridge to the next
level and really hit a ton of muscles in a short amount of
time. Great part is you can do this one in bed or on a floor.
Just lie flat your back like this. So, to get into position,
what I'm going to do is have my knees bent, feet flat, legs
roughly about hip width apart. We're going to start off by
bracing or tightening our core muscles. It's kind of like
sucking your belly button right here towards your spine. You
should feel everything tighten up. From there, we're going to
hold that and then squeeze the glutes. You want to hold this
position during this exercise. Your hands can go right on your
hips or off your side like this for support. So, the first
movement, we're going to do a glute bridge. We're going to
drive our hips upward towards the ceiling as far as we can
until our body is in a nice straight line from our knees to
our hips to our shoulders. If you're unable to get into this
position due to pain or weakness, do the best you can.
Hopefully, over time, you will gain strength and flexibility
to get into this position but you're going to feel a ton of
muscles start to fire. The core, the back, the glutes, and
the legs. Everything that helps support a healthy spine. You
want to hold this one comfortably for 5 seconds.
You're going to relax, take a breather, and then repeat this
110 times and with each repetition, try to build into
it just a little bit more. If it feels like you have a little
bit more energy, you can always throw in another set or two. To
take the pelvic bridge to the next level, what you can do is
get into the bridge but lift one leg up like this and
support all of your weight on one side. Just make sure when
you do this to have everything in the hips imbalance. So, it
feels like it's tilted like this consciously make sure that
everything is nice and level you can also do a marching
motion just like this to make it a little bit more
challenging so give that one a try if you have the strength so
next we're going to do what is called a clamshell bridge which
is really going to target the glutes the glutes are one of
the biggest instigators of lower back and hip pain so it's
really important that we have those nice and strong so what
we're going to do is take our feet and put them together like
this and we're going to wing our knees outward as much as we
can so drive them down towards the bed of the floor you should
feel a really good stretch form on the inner part of your leg
going towards your groin when you feel that you're then going
to hold this and make sure to brace your core and squeeze the
glutes take your arms right here put them off your side and
then drive your hips upward into that bridge position
you're going to feel it a lot over those glutes just like
this so what I'm going to do is hold this one for five seconds.
You just relax and then you repeat this one10 times but
again, you can throw in another set or two. If the exercises
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