Hi I'm Coby, I'm an Osteopath in the UK and I'm going to talk to you a little
bit about low back pain and see if we might be able to help you get a little
bit of pain relief by doing some targeted exercises and stretches to your
low back and to the tissues causing your pain
90% of back pain is muscular only 10% requires medical attention now this is
really great statistic and really great news because that means there is
absolutely masses that you can do to resolve your low back pain the commonest
cause of that 90% of low back pain is what we call a muscle imbalance it's a
lack of core your core muscles have gone to sleep and your movement muscles are
overworking they're having to compensate for the lack of action in the core
stability muscles and they just become the movement muscles just become tight
and they fatigue and they start to ache so I'm just going to teach you some
exercises today that will stretch out those movement muscles take the two ends
of the muscle away from each other and start to reduce the tension in those
movement muscles which will give you immediate pain relief what it won't give
you however is permanent resolution of your back pain because you need to put
yourself through a much longer rebalancing program where you kick in
the core muscles allowing the movement muscles to relax and then become
strengthened and your pain will resolve when all the muscles in your back are
doing the jobs that they should stabilizers will stabilize the movement
muscles will move with enough strength in them to be able to do that job I do
have a rebalancing program available on my website it's a 6-week program and it
is very very effective if you do it every day that is the only if the only
clause but for now let's just get you started with a few exercises that you
can do on a daily basis to give you immediate relief but just please do be
aware your pain will come back and and they will continue to come back until
you get that muscles rebalanced so we're just going
to start with a really simple exercise to stretch out those long chains of
muscle either side of your spine from the lumbar spine right up to the
shoulder blades in between the shoulder blades and that muscle is called erector
spinae it's responsible for the majority of the pain you all be experiencing
today in your low back so just gently come forward if you can if you do have a
disc bulge that's moving backwards you may not be able to do this exercise
until your disc is back in position and you no longer have pain down in the back
of your leg everyone else just gently walk forward that's lovely and bring
your head to rest as close to the floor as you can when you're comfortable just
start to walk your hands around to the left and when you reach a nice
comfortable end of range just reach forward with that right hand a couple of
inches and get a great stretch through the ribcage stretching your lung and
naturally what we're aiming for is to get that erector spinae traction dand
stretched out breathe naturally relaxing your body onto your thighs and when
you've had enough of that just walk back to Center allowing your hands to take a
lot of the weight of your body so that your back muscles aren't doing any work
let your arms do the work and reach a nice end of range again over at the
right and then extend that left hand a couple more inches reaching out from the
shoulder there opening up the rib cage lap d'Orsay gets a great stretch a
little bit into ql here as well but mainly that erector spinae starts being
moved if you have had a disc injury and it's nicely back in position this is
very safe for you and is also very good as well coming back to Center
remembering to take the weight of your body through your hands walk yourself
back up into sitting position hands onto the knees pushing yourself back up into
a sitting position
next exercise is going to continue to get a great a rotational stretch through
the low back the more you can get movement back into the vertebrae and the
joints the better so we're going to continue stretching out the erector
spinae we're also looking now going to get into the glutes and into the TfL a
tensor fasciae latae and hopefully a little bit into piriformis if we're
lucky so let's start by lying down just come
down gently move onto your knees maybe have a little soft pillow thin pillow
just to make sure that you're really really comfortable okay so let's start
by having your left leg flat and your right leg bent if you can just raise the
hips and take them to the right a couple of inches just take that right foot
place it on the floor on the opposite side of the left knee and take hold of
that knee with the left hand with the right hand
just unpeel it onto the floor at shoulder height
and we're going to turn your head to look at that right hand when we reach
the extension for this exercise okay lovely deep breath in and as you relax
just very gently very gently don't push it at all just draw that knee down
towards the floor and just gently observe where you feel a little bit of
tension you might feel it in your low back you may feel it in the side of your
hip in the glute muscles or you may feel it right down the side and even into
your knee where you feel the tension is where your muscles are indeed tight and
need the stretch so each time you exhale just gently encourage that knee down
towards the floor it's not the knee we're worried about it's more the low
back and the hip muscles that we're trying to release turn the head to the
right to get an extra stretch you're also getting a nice opening through the
upper back here the through the pectoral muscles and the front of the chest that
will in turn help with your low back pain as well so when you're ready to
come out of this contract your abdominal muscles use your abs to do this don't
use your back use your abdominal muscles keep your back relaxed at all times back
to Center raise the hips bring them back to the middle and release that right leg
down onto the I'm gonna repeat that to the other side
so just bend that left knee raise the hips take them a couple of inches to the
left take hold of that left knee with your
right hand and oh I've missed out the stage which was to bring the knee across
the other side the foot across the other side of that right knee take hold and
inhale and as you exhale just draw that knee down to the floor releasing the
left hand out to the side at shoulder height
that's lovely so inhale and as you exhale gently encourage that knee down
towards the floor remembering we're trying to release all of these muscles
through here on the exhalation you relax you don't push never push a muscle never
force it just gently work with it work with its natural limits its natural
length will it will lengthen and improve very very fast if you work naturally and
calmly with your muscles and don't force them through any pain barriers okay so
to come out of that I'd like you to contract your abdominals again raise
that knee up bring the hips back to Center and release your hair your feet
down to the floor shake out
this next exercise is another favorite of mine it's really good for releasing
through the front of the hips and the quadriceps and also opening up through
the side of the hips again which is very important
for releasing a low back pain you should get some movement into the joints of the
lumbar vertebra as well so separate your feet about as wide if you're on a mat
then try and have your feet on the edge of the exercise mats you've got quite a
wide stance there and all we're going to do is drop both your knees down to the
same direction so pick which direction you're going to go and then on the
exhalation just drop the knees relaxing in the back just drop the knees down
bring the arms out to shoulder height so you're opening up the chest opening up
the thoracics starting get a reversing of that thoracic curve turn the head to
look left so you should feel a lovely stretch down the front of that left leg
right down into the knee and maybe a little bit up into the hip and the main
thing is we're staying starting to get some mobility back into this low back
that's great just rest there for a few breaths and when you're ready contract
the abdominals raise the knees back to Center and then repeat to the opposite
direction dropping both knees down to the left and the head to the right
when you're ready contract your abs relax your back don't wanna you up back
to them bring your knees up your abs got to do all the work here all part of the
process I've starting to kick in those core
muscles so contract the ABS towards the spine raise those knees up and bring the
arms back to Center next we're going to do some really simple knee hugs because
they are absolutely brilliant at stretching out that lower back they just
grip a great traction through the joints opening up the facets decompressing
those discs and getting a nice stretch through the glutes and erector spinae
again okay so just start in a very controlled
way again relax your back just gently contract the abdominals and if you can
just draw the knees up to a vertical position and then draw the knees towards
your chest that's lovely just as close as you can
relax your abdomen relax your back and relax your pelvis if you want to
increase the neural stretch you can just draw the head up towards the knee but
you may find that's a little bit of a strain on your neck in which case just
leave the knees down their head down that's lovely
sometimes it's nice to just do one knee at a time again I'm going through these
quite quickly and if you do have low back pain you will need to go through
these quite gently and slowly at your own pace contract the ABS switch legs
that's lovely get a nice stretch through the glutes through the low back and
through the erector spinae okay another one switch legs again just bring the
knee diagonally towards the opposite shoulder that's really good for getting
into the glutes there the glute medius which is quite difficult muscle to
stretch there and getting a little bit into piriformis here okay and then just
switch legs again bring the left knee up again take that left knee towards that
right shoulder diagonal stretch up getting right in to that left hip and
gluts just do it to a level that is comfortable for you and allow your
muscles to naturally length that's great coming back to Center and just to finish
off I'd like you just to move your knees it
gently in a clockwise direction in a circle this is going to just gently
massage your sacrum and the base of your spine it's going to release your
sacroiliac joints and just start to get some gentle movement back there and the
other way anti-clockwise direction nice and slow just allowing everything to
know that it's safe to move often when you have prolonged low back pain you
stop moving everything and you just everything locks up and unfortunately
that contributes to your pain and exacerbates it and increases your pain
so even just by the nature of trusting me enough to do these gentle movements
your pain will start to release when you're ready just release the feet back
to the floor
so there we are that's just a few of my very favorite top exercises for getting
instant immediate relief to low back pain one of the reasons you get the
immediate relief is actually just by the nature of starting to move your back
when you have chronic low back pain you do get into this cycle of pain so you
stop moving out of fear that causes the muscles to tighten up even more and that
increases your pain so you move even less so all I'm trying to do here with
this exercise with this video is start to break that cycle and just start
encouraging you through not even a pain bow it's encouraging you through a fear
barrier the very best thing you can do for your low back pain if you're in that
90 percent bracket of muscular pain is move but gentle movement that doesn't
cause your muscles to react and spasm so the great thing about all of the
exercises I've done here is that they're on the floor and your body is completely
relaxed and supported so your back muscles don't actually have to do any
work during these exercises so these are completely safe for you to get you back
on that road of moving your back
if you want to learn more about how to rebalance the muscles in your back in
order to get a greater pain relief for a longer period of time and really take
control or over your low back pain then visit my website soothe clinic comm
where you'll find a six-week program that you can put yourself through with
very very good results I wish you the very best of luck