at some point in our lives most of us are going to get some form of low back
pain. For those of us who are actually quite lucky that back pain will turn
into just a very short episode, a very acute but short passing. For those of us
who are not quite so lucky though, that low back pain will become very chronic
and chronic back pain is really anything that's longer than maybe six months or
more. In today's video I'm going to talk to you mainly about low back pain that's
chronic and what exercises you can do that might help you to get over it. One
thing I've noticed over time guys is that people with lower back pain are often
very tight in the areas surrounding the area of pain. So in terms of lower back
it's often their erector spinae the muscles going alongside the spine
their gluteal and hip muscles and also their hamstrings now if you look at the
diagram, let's assume someone has pain in this region this lower back region here.
Above it you've got the erector spinae, below you've got the glute minimus, medius
and Maximus (so the gluteal muscles), the hamstrings and then lower down into the
calf. These are all really strong muscle groups. I think it's a bit of a chicken
and egg thing going on here. Were they experiencing low back pain because they
are predisposed by tight hamstrings buttocks and hips? Or did the low back
pain happen and then as a way of protecting it the body then tightened up
the hamstrings the buttocks and hips. Either way when you're treating lower
back pain I think it's really important to focus not only on the lower back but
also the area's above and below. So I'm going to show you now a few simple
exercises for your hips and buttocks and hamstrings that you can do to start
getting more flexible and looser in those areas to hopefully start freeing
up your lower back. The first thing that you're going to do
is to hang off of a doorframe or a bar at the gym. Hanging from a bar or a
doorframe is safe for pretty much all types of
back pain so this is why I suggest you start with this one first.
The reason why you're going to hang is because in your in your spine the
hanging is going to create a pulling sensation on the intervertebral discs. So
if you have a disc bulge or a disc prolapse then that pulling is going to
almost create a suction type mechanism which could potentially pull some of
that disc prolapse or disc bulge back in and thus reducing the extent of the disc
prolapse. So reach up grab a bar drop your knees down and just allow your
lower back and abdominal region to relax and from this position just continue to
breathe but allowing your pelvis to drop.
Another really simple but effective stretch and mobilization is what they
call in yoga the cat and cow you're going to start by coming down onto your
hands and knees place your hands underneath your shoulders and your knees
are underneath your hips so you're in an all fours position. Make sure your spine
is neutral so it's neither overly flexed or overly extended.
Once your comfortable in that position take a deep breath in and as you breathe in
look up towards the ceiling and push your belly down so that your lower back
is bending. Once you've taken another deep breath in breathe out and as you
breathe out drop your head down lift your lower spine as much as you can
almost like someone's got a piece of string on your back and is lifting it up
once you've fully exhaled take another deep breath in and as you
do that lift your head up again pushing your belly down. The reason
I think this is a good exercise to do is because it causes movement throughout
the lower back which makes the muscles of your lower back the erector spinae
contract and relax which helps to push blood through the muscles and allows
better drainage of the blood and any inflammation helps to push it away. I
suggest doing this about five to ten times really slowly and just focusing on
the speed of your breath rather than trying to get through the movement The
next really important stretch is for your hips and buttocks and you can do
this while you're at the office or at home or anywhere that's seated. You can
also do another variation which is lying down on the floor which I'll show you
afterwards. So if you're at work and you're sat down on a chair and perch on
the edge of your chair, put one leg on top of the other knee, hold your shin
with both hands and then use your elbow to push that knee down. If you want to
increase that stretch you can lean forwards into it but most people will
find that this is enough just by putting a hand or an elbow on that top knee and
pushing down. One thing I would just point out to you guys is don't put your
foot on your knee because that's going to put a lot of stress through your
ankle which will make your ankle ligaments start to become over stretched.
So make sure that ankle is well over your planted knee. From here grab your
knee, lift your knee up and over so now you should be feeling a stretch through
your buttocks. When I do these stretches on myself I like to do each stretch for
about 20 seconds alternating into the other one about 20 seconds, alternate
back and keep repeating every other 20 seconds. I find that this helps to keep
it a bit looser almost like it's pumping blood through the area and almost a
bit like exercising it rather than just purely stretching it. If you're a bit
more nimble or you're at the gym or you're at home I find this one actually
is a lot stronger. Cross your legs then with it whichever one you want
on top of your bottom leg and then either using your hand or your elbow
push that knee down and hold. After about 20 seconds
grab your knee and pull it up and over the other way. Now some people find
that this stretch is too hard to get into so one way of working around it is
to put one leg straight across your other leg over and then do the same
thing.
When it comes to stretching your hamstrings quite often you'll see
runners in particularly doing it wrong and what people tend to do is have the
leg straight and then flexion through their spine so they try to bend their
whole bodies which puts a lot of strain through the nerves at the back of the
the back of the legs but also puts a lot of strain through the the lower back as
well. So in my opinion the best way of stretching your hamstrings is to have a
soft bend in the knees. Now if you're really tight to begin with then have one
leg bent. From here bend the other leg keep your chest up and your back
straight. Now when you come to bend forwards
you're gonna try and push your belly forward onto your thigh. Like this . That's
it for today guys I hope that today's video has helped you at least get a
little bit more of an understanding of what you can do for your lower back. What
I would suggest is the more you put into it. The more consistently you do your
exercises the better results you're going to get from it. If you're only
doing these exercises once a week or less you're not really gonna see any
changes at all. My suggestion would be that you did these exercises maybe every
other day at least but preferably every day. You don't have to do these exercises
for ten or fifteen twenty minutes a day you could perhaps just choose one
exercise and do that stretch for one to two minutes and then the following day
you could do one of the other stretches and do that for one or two minutes and
so on, and that way you're going to consistently get something going on
every day which will eventually lead to your lower back starting to respond and
hopefully loosening up and becoming more and more
pain-free as you go. But of course I would suggest that if you do have
persistent low back pain go and get it checked out by someone who knows what
they're doing, someone who knows what to look out for and who can advise you much
better than a Google search. I hope you found today's video helpful if you have
do give it a thumbs up consider subscribing and until the next
one take care and good bye.