A Great Hamstring Stretch that won’t damage your back

You probably know of many ways to stretch your hamstrings but do you know how to do them without causing damage to your lower back.

As we talked about before in the lower back exercises, bending forwards will put excess stress on your discs so you don’t want to be doing the classic bending forward hamstring stretch. It will not only put strain on your discs but more than that, it’s not actually a very effective stretch anyway. By the way, here is a photo of a person doing a hamstring stretch very poorly putting his lower back at risk.

Here a great alternative that not only is safe for your lower back but also is extremely powerful:

• stand facing a wall and put one foot up against the wall
• press your heel into the wall keeping your foot vertical
• Make sure the foot you are standing on is also facing the wall and not turned out.
• keep your back straight
• make sure you are standing erect and not arching you lower or upper back
• Breathe. Relax into it. Hold for 20 secs.
• Remember, you only want a feeling of stretch when dong any stretches. Do not think ‘no pain, no gain’ you will only tear muscle fibers.