Lower Back Pain Exercises

Back Pain Exercises

Back Pain Exercises: Hamstring Stretch

To stretch the backs of your thighs

If your hamstring muscles are tight, and they most likely are if you have lower back pain, it is important to find a way to stretch them without straining your lower back in the process. That is why, although the following back pain exercises are probably the safest way to stretch your hamstring muscles, I suggest that you don’t do this exercise until you have first done other and less strenuous exercises for one month.

Start in the Basic Position (lying on your back). Raise one knee towards your chest. Fully extend and straighten your leg toward the ceiling at a 45-degree angle. Then, keeping your knee straight, try to move your leg up towards a 90-degree angle.

Frequency: Week 1 - three repetitions of 3 seconds each; by the end of Week 2, six repetitions of 6 seconds each; by the end of Week 3, ten repetitions of 10 seconds each.

The safety feature here is initially to extend your leg at a 45-degree angle - even though you can go higher. At this angle there is virtually no risk of overstretching your hamstrings. It’s better to wait until your flexibility increases and you start to experience some back pain relief before attempting to extend your leg all the way up to a 90-degree angle.

There are three other commonly used hamstring-stretching back pain exercises, none of which is recommended by most survey participants. But I will briefly describe these variations, because you’re likely to run into them and should know why they might not be advisable.

1. A straight-leg lift done from the Basic Position, locking your knee and raising your straightened leg from the floor toward 90 degrees

2. Sitting in a chair, bending from the waist, and lowering your head towards your knees

3. Sitting on the floor with your legs straight out in front of you and leaning forwards

Survey participants felt strongly, however, that these movements, compared with the recommended exercise, placed unnecessary stress on the lower back and hips.