Hey, everybody is Doctor Jo and cool Remy. And today I'm going
to show you my favorite stretch for lower back pain. So let's
get started. So my favorite stretch for the lower back is a
knee to chest stretch. It's really one of my favorites. It
opens up the lower back. It kind of opens up the mid back as
well. It stretches out the hips and the knees too. With the knee
to chest stretch, we're going to be lying down on our backs.
We're going to do this in real time. So each hold is going to
be 30 seconds, and we're going to do three times on each side.
So I'm going to go ahead and start this just to get lined
down, that's going to give us a little buffer. Go ahead and lie
down on your back with your knees propped up. So with a knee
to chest is just like it sounds, you're gonna bring your knee up
towards your chest. Now, if you have a little bit of knee pain,
you can grab underneath here, instead of on top. But if you
don't have any knee issues, sometimes the holding it up on
top gives you a little bit better stretch. Try to keep your
knee coming up to your chest in a straight plane. So not out to
the side, sometimes you can get further with that, but you're
not going to get that back stretch. So just stretching
here. And then again, holding that stretch for that 30
seconds. We're just going to alternate back and forth, you
can do all three on one side of this switch. But I kind of like
giving each side a little bit of a break. So again, just when
you're coming up, if you want to go on top, you can but if you do
have some knee pain, this is a good way just to kind of grab
underneath here. Again, keeping that knee in that kind of
neutral plane right here. holding that stretch. If you
want to get a little bit of a hip flexor stretch on the other
side. Or if you want to get a little bit more stretch in your
back, you can slide this leg down. But sometimes for people
that's a little bit uncomfortable, but it's a nice
way to kind of get that combination stretch, I like to
kind of keep it up, it's usually a little bit more comfortable
when you're first starting out. Knee to chest stretch is one of
my favorite stretches, especially for the lower back. I
found that it has done really well with my patients. But
again, everybody's a little bit different. So this might not be
the best one for you. But there's definitely a lot of
other stretches to be able to try as well. So just nice
pulling up, try and keep everything nice and relaxed, try
not to come up, you know, keep your neck just relax as well. So
you're really trying to focus on getting that stretch in that
lower back area. Sometimes people do feel a little bit of
pinching in their hip. So maybe just come off, even if you can
go further, you don't really want to pinch that hip and be
uncomfortable. There are other ways to if you're getting some
hip pinching that you can find in some of my other videos where
you're using a strap to kind of push that hip down while you're
coming up. So there's a couple different ways to modify it. But
if you don't have that, just kind of go until you get a good
comfortable position. Because this is designed to really help
be comfortable and relax those muscles. And again, if you want
a little bit more push, you can come up on top here.
These can be done on the floor on your couch on a bed. I know a
lot of times people will say they have a hard time getting on
the floor. So you can definitely do these on a couch or bed they
you don't have to have a firm surface to do this. So for this
one, I'm going to pull up and then I'm just going to slide
that other leg down. To get that hip flexor stretch on the other
side. My hip flexors always need some good stretching. So this is
a nice one. You see I'm going out just a little bit. So I want
to make sure I'm bringing that knee back in even if I have to
take my hand and pull it up and in just a little bit and I feel
that a little bit more in my hip. And so that's why you want
to keep that knee kind of in that plane and not out to the
side there. And then you can bring that down and slide it
back up. Make sure you're taking the breaks in between to really
reset those muscles to. So coming back up. Get a little pop
in the ankle. And then if you want to slide that one down
again, you can. Sometimes people ask about the position of the
foot. Relaxing it takes a little bit of pressure off if you want
a little bit more of a stretch everywhere. If you pull your
toes up, you'll get a little bit more pull in there. So sometimes
if you want that extra push, you can pull those toes up that way.
So there you go. habit that was my favorite stretch to relieve
lower back pain. If you're interested in checking out any
other stretches or exercises for the lower back, you can click on
the playlist up there. And remember, be safe, have fun, and
I hope you feel better soon.