Yoga for back pain. Does it work? Does it help? Is it even worth your time? What's the magical
stretch that can relieve your back problem? Hey, my name is Lucas. I've been teaching yoga
since 2003. One thing that surprised me right away in classes is about one in three, or one
in four people who walk through the door, they had some kind of chronic lower back problem. The
most common region was the lower back. And lo and behold, a couple years into teaching, I developed
my own lower back problem and I started digging into the research and trying to figure out what
was going on. Here's what I've discovered. About 80 percent of people all around the world at some
point will end up with a major back problem. In fact, it's the number one. Back pain is the number
one cause of work related disability, meaning people don't come into work all around the world.
So what's going on? Why are spines so messed up? Why are people missing work? Why are they taking
painkillers? Why are they getting surgeries? What's gone wrong? Well, the first thing you
need to understand is that your spine it's not just one thing, it's a whole region of your body.
Intervertebral discs, muscles, and ligaments, and nerves, there's a lot of different constituent
parts. There's a lot of different things that can go wrong. So when we're chatting about your back,
or your spine, we're actually chatting about a whole system. When we think about a solution,
which we'll get into later, you need to focus on a systems-based approach as well.
Before we chat about some possible solutions I want to help you rethink and re-evaluate your
relationship with pain, because a lot of students and a lot of people get really stuck on this idea
that "pain is bad, I need to cut off the pain to fix the problem" and there's a lot of confusion
around this. When it comes to pain, I hate pain, you hate pain, none of us want pain, but
it's important to remember that nociception, this ability to feel pain, this is something adaptive,
something we've learned over tens of thousands of years of evolution. It is an adaptive response
to keep you safe. When you bend forward and your lower back screams at you, that's your lower back
saying "Hey not today, back off, slow it down". You need to take care because we're healing here,
and when you turn off that pain with Advil, with muscle relaxants, with painkillers,
with cortisone shots, the danger here is that you have a fire in the kitchen and you pull
the batteries out of the fire alarm instead of putting out the fire. Very often this is what we
do. We treat the fire alarm, not the fire, and so the problem lingers and lingers and lingers. Both
alternative medicine and allopathic medicine, most of their work is focused around the fire alarm,
not the fire. My hope today is that you can start to think about the fire itself,
meaning the root cause of your back problem, and then you can start to find out some solutions.
Could it be that your tight hamstrings are the cause? Possibly. Could it be that your tight
hips are the cause? Very likely. But in most cases there's a whole bunch of things going on.
Our modern lifestyle isn't really conducive to a healthy back. Why? Well, we don't hinge forward
very often, we don't squat very often. In fact, we don't even move that much. So lack of activity,
limited range of motion, lack of strength and flexibility, combined with imbalances, it's kind
of a perfect storm for back problems. To reverse that problem very often we need to take the
opposite approach. As I mentioned before, when we think of the spine we have a system, when we think
of a solution we need to take a systems approach. Very often when people go to a yoga teacher,
or a personal trainer, or a physical therapist, somebody like me throws a couple of yoga poses,
stretches, at them, the personal trainer throws a couple of lifting exercises at them, and maybe
the physical therapist has them balancing on a Bosu ball or doing some corrective exercises.
First of all, all of those things are great but probably all of those things need to be combined,
rather than isolated. And the isolated, one pill, one pain, one solution, one problem, doesn't work
nearly as well for back pain as a systems-based approach that focuses on flexibility, yes,
but also strength, and also muscular balance. I'd like to share with you a few poses.
I don't want to present these as a panacea and I don't want to present these as a destination,
but they're the first step on a path for you to rethink your pain and rethink your healing
journey in the context of flexibility, but also strength and balance. Let's take a look.
The first pose we'll take a look at today is called super squeezer and you need two blocks,
but if you don't have blocks you can use two pillows from the couch,
anything. We need one for the front, one for the back, and this pose is designed to strengthen your
posterior chain. That's a fancy name for all the muscles that run along the back side of your body,
including your hamstrings, your glutes, your QL and erector spinae muscles, among others.
Let me show you how it works. I'll put a block in front of me, a block on the back of my mat,
and I'll come down onto my belly and lie flat. Squeeze the block between your feet.
You have to wiggle and adjust so you get a nice squeeze, and then squeeze the block
in front of you between your hands. We'll squeeze everything together. With your ears,
keep your ears in line with your arms. We lift up and squeeze and hold here for five, four,
three, two, one, lower down. Let me show you one more time. Lengthen, lengthen, lengthen and lift.
Ears and arms in one line. Five, four, three, two, one. Slowly lower down. When you're practicing
that one try for five breaths and five sets. If you feel any kind of pinching, any kind of
compression anywhere in your spine, lower down and think about long, long, long, before you lift. The
next pose is called a diagonal lunge stretch. It's really great for your psoas muscle and your other
hip flexors on your back leg. Let me show you how it works. Make your way up to a standing position.
Let's step our right foot forward and turn your foot out quite a bit, maybe 30 degrees, maybe
even 45 degree turnout. Take your back foot and slide it back behind you in a lunging position,
as far as you feel comfortable. Left leg back, left arm reaches up, up, up, reach back with
your right hand and reach for your leg back behind you. Your eyes look up towards the ceiling, three,
two, one, switch. Left leg's in front, foot is turned out, slide your right leg back into a
deep lunge, right leg is back, psoas stretch on the back. Reach your right arm up, up, up,
reach your left arm back, look up three, two, one, slowly lower down. I'd encourage you to do
five repetitions on each side of that psoas stretch. That lengthens and opens your hip
flexors on the back leg, really effective for relieving pressure on your lower back.
For our final pose let's work on a pointer pose. This is very helpful for balancing right and left
imbalances. Start off on your hands and knees like a child crawling. Knees are under your hips,
toes are tucked back behind you, fingers are spread, hands right underneath your shoulders.
Stretch your right arm forward, spread your fingers, and don't lift your arm up high,
instead have it straight out in front of you, and your ear and your arm
in one line. Right arm forward, left leg back, not very high with your leg. Instead, keep it
perpendicular to the ground and we hold here for five, four, three, two, one, switch. Left knee
down, right hand down, your left arm is up, spread your fingers, ear and arm in one line, right leg
straight back behind you, point your toes, gaze in front of you on the floor, five, four, three,
two, one. Put your hand down, put your foot down, and take a break. Do that same routine,
but do five rounds on either side. So today we worked on strength, we worked on length,
flexibility of our hip flexors, and then we worked on balance, right/left balance. This paradigm,
this approach, is how we work on all different back problems. Just remember
to listen to pain. Pain is your body communicating with you, and if in doubt err on the side of slow
and take it step by step, day by day. I'd love to hear your questions and your suggestions for
future videos. Here at Yogabody we work on flexibility of hips, hamstrings, shoulders,
we work on back care, we work a lot with breathing and we even do inversion training on the Yoga
Trapeze. I'd love to hear what you'd be interested in down below. And if you have any questions about
the poses or anything else, love to hear from you. Thanks for tuning in and we'll see you next time.