Which Exercises Help Most With Back Pain?
Ever had back pain? There's not much that is more debilitating for your everyday life then dealing with back pain. I have some surefire ways to help you STOP hurting!
The first thing I should say is that I'm not a doctor, and I'm not trying to give medical advice here. If you're dealing with back pain, then please do visit a specialist.
But I will also say, there is a lot of scientific evidence supporting what I'm saying, and I'm going to make sure to explain all that!
Sitting…all…day…
As you can probably guess, what is WORST for your back and causes the MOST lower back pain is sitting all day. This hurts your hips, back, vertebrae, and even your hamstrings, because sitting engages your hamstrings and makes them way too tight.
Let's back-CRACK the case! Ahh…
So to relieve all this pain from sitting, obviously the first order of business is to sit as little as possible, get a standing desk at work, things like that. But since you clicked on a blog about back pain, then I understand that you need to know how to get rid of pain you've already got! So what you want to do is get what's called "traction" in your spine. That means stretching the spine so that your spine is pulling up and down at the same time. This helps stretch the ligaments in your spine, taking all the pressure off the spinal discs. And it gives the nerve endings in your spine bigger holes to squeeze through, so you could also actually get rid of a pinched nerve problem this way!!
Yoga
In yoga, this is often called "opening up" the lower back.
First off, there are a lot of easy yoga poses you can do to get spinal traction. One of these is "bridge pose," where you have your feet flat on the ground, and are laying on your back, and then you lift your back up off the ground.
This is already a pretty good pose for spinal traction, but if you put a foam block under your back and relax your whole body, then you have the foam block pulling your spine one way, and gravity pulling your spine back down the other way. And because all of your back muscles are relaxed, you know you are getting that stretch in the lumbar area, without anything else interfering.
Similarly, putting your legs straight up against the nearest wall is a good spinal traction pose, again because you are relaxing your body while letting gravity take over, and also because you are stretching your hamstrings. I know putting your legs straight up against the wall is not something everyone can do, so if it hurts or you're not that flexible…then try it again with your butt further away from the wall.
Aerobics!
Last but not least, running and other aerobic exercises can get rid of your back pain!
I know if you have back pain, then running or other aerobics does not sound fun. But this study found that aerobics help you with low back pain, because it gently strengthens your core, which in turn takes some of the stress off your back!
As you may already know, my team and I do many aerobic workouts!! And not only for back pain, but for transforming your life, and producing the happy hormones you need to make things SO SO much better!