Posts Tagged "best lower back exercises"

WHICH IS THE SINGLE BEST EXERCISE FOR LOWER BACK PAIN?

Posted by mark in Lower Back pain and your core | 0 comments

If I was asked which the best exercise for lower back pain is and I could only choose one which would it be.

I am sure that if you are reading this you probably are suffering from lower back pain or at least have at some point been suffering from back ache. Let’s face it, haven’t we all at some stage.

One of the biggest problems for back pain sufferers is that if you surf the net there are literally thousands of people claiming that they have miraculous exercises to cure your back pain. However there is only one problem. If you don’t know what to do you could make your problem worse, much worse.

Let’s take a lower back L5-S1 disc bulge as an example. It’s the most commonly affected disc because it’s at the end of the spine and has the most amount of stress put on it. It’s also the area where the lumbar curve changes from a lordosis to a kyphosis where it meets the sacrum. This area of changing curves is another reason that the stresses are greater at this region. The sciatic nerve exits at this region and this is why sciatica is most common as far as lumbar pinched nerves are concerned. The majority of disc bulges in this region tend to be posterior disc bulges, in other words the bulge is being pushed from the front of the spine to the back (away from the navel). Therefore if you were to do exercises that exacerbate it such as flexion exercises you could push the disc bulge further in the wrong direction making your problem worse. In fact, I had a client see me this morning who had been doing yoga for the past 6 months and every time she did forward bending yoga postures she made her back worse, so much so that she has given up yoga altogether. I would surmise that she has a posterior disc problem or at very least ligament problems that are constantly being overstretched doing these exercises. If you have read my other posts you will know that bringing knees to your chest, touching toes and other lumbar spine flexion exercises can be very damaging to the lumbar spine and should be avoided!

Another problem stretch for lumbar disc problems is the lumbar torsion stretch. Many of you would be aware of this one too. It’s where you lay on your back and pull one leg across your body with the opposite am outstretched. This too can make certain disc bulges worse!

Likewise if your problem was from spinal stenosis you could do extension exercises and aggravate your pain by doing these.

So the stretch I would do is one that is safe, both stretches and strengthens common weak and tight muscles and will ease back pain. The stretch I choose is to loosen our lower back muscles that are contracted chronically all day every day and are major contributors to back pain in most cases. The majority of us sit all day at our desks, in our cars or at the computers and chronically shorten a muscle called the illiopsoas. When this is tight it can pull on our lower backs and make sleeping on our backs and stomachs, sitting and even standing painful. If I was on a desert island and could only do one stretch it would be to loosen the illiopsoas muscles. One of the major problems when this muscle is too tight is that it restricts our amount of hip extension. This is very important because when we don’t have enough hip extension which we need to walk and do our daily tasks, our body compensates and finds extension elsewhere. This happens at the lumbar spine which is not good! If your hip can’t extend like it should your lower back does the compensating which means you now have hips that are to tight and a back that is getting too much movement when it should be doing its role as a stabiliser. It is imperative that this be turned around because it will and does lead commonly to back pain. What you want is to have the hips more mobile by doing the lunge stretch and your back staying in its more neutral position with reduced movement. Your back needs to be stabile not moving around all over the place to compensate for other tight and poorly performing muscle groups. Therefore the lunge stretch is the best single back exercise if you had to do just one! It also makes your body work hard to balance whilst you do it so it hasn’t the added bonus of strengthening certain other integral muscle groups as well.

I must add that it is very often taught poorly and not correctly. To be effective it must be done properly otherwise you can aggravate your back by doing it.

I have a full explanation on how to do the lunge stretch both properly and safely. So for those of you who don’t have time to do your back exercises here is one that you can do several times a days you stand up from your computer and it will help enormously.

One final word- remember to sit properly, to lift correctly, to get up and down from your chairs correctly and your back will be very happy indeed!

the four best exercises for lower back pain

Posted by mark in Lower Back pain and your core | 0 comments

The four best exercises for lower back pain

I have written at great length about lower back posture and its damaging effects on the back. I have also written on exercises that reduce symptoms of sciatica and why this works. However, today I want to focus on the four best exercises for your lower back and why they are considered the best. These exercises are to be done each and every day. They are quick and easy to do.

Firstly, let’s have a look at one of the biggest myths in back care today and why it doesn’t work. I am sure you have all heard about stretching and strengthening for your lower back to cure your lower back pain. There is only one problem with this theory-it doesn’t! The major drawback is that a strong and flexible back is not a better back. That is to say, just because you can get on a back machine at the gym and extend with 200lbs of weight you are not helping your back. In fact, the machine where you sit and bend forwards and backwards to strengthen your back muscles is one of the worst machines you can do for your back! The research done by the foremost expert in lower backs, Dr. Stuart McGill actually used this same action to make discs rupture! Dr. McGill has written over 200 research papers on lower back health and is one of, if not the most recognised researchers in Lower back health. When it comes to this machine he will tell you that it’s a sure fire way to herniate a disc. The constant bending forwards with weight added to it is extremely harmful.

So having a super strong back does not mean that you have a back that will be pain free.

When it comes to having a flexible back the results are the same. Many backs that are too flexible have more problems than backs that have a certain amount of stiffness. A flexible back can be an unstable back.

What you do want is a back that has good stamina. What this means is that your back is able to remain stable during your daily activities without breaking down. This is the great secret to back health!

A study in Finland showed that people who lacked back endurance (or stamina) were 3-4 times more likely to have back pain than those who had good or even fair back endurance. You need to be able to maintain good posture  both when you are sitting and standing otherwise you will lose your stability and protection, your back will become unstable and your back will ‘go out on you’ or to put it more correctly, be injured!.

Therefore it’s imperative to do these exercises every day to build up your stamina. The studies have shown by doing them every day your back will be better than if you were to do them only two to three times a week. Remember, you are trying to build up your endurance levels.

So before we start, if you haven’t already read my other posts on why you shouldn’t do sit-ups, trying to touch your toes, forward bends etc I suggest you do so that you can remove a vital component which is damaging your back. Also, if you are doing any type of forwards bending like getting out of bed in the morning and start touching your toes, bringing your knees to your chest you most definitely need to read my other posts on back pain because you are now putting your discs at a 300% greater risk of damage.

One final thing, please please please don’t slouch or lift things with a rounded back or work bent over forwards with your lower back bent-keep your lower back straight maintaining its inward arch and bend at the hips. By doing this you have just protected your back ligaments and discs from damage!

And one last final thing, you already know that you should not bend forwards with a rounded lower back because it is damaging to your back. Then what do you think you are doing when you lay on your back and do sit-ups? You are curling your lower back over and over again which is harmful to your lower back! The only difference between doing sit-ups and bending with a rounded back to pick something up is that you are lying on the ground when you do a sit-up. Every single sit up you do is damaging your back!

Ok, so here are the four best exercises to manage your back pain and protect you from having back pain in the future.

Cat-Camel

The cat-camel is a warm up exercises to get your back mobile.

Get down on your hands and knees and place them about shoulder width apart. Now let your head bend forward you also arch your back upwards as high as you can go comfortably. This should give you a rounded spine. Then when you have done this you arch your back the other way as if you are trying to touch your belly button to the ground and also extend your neck so that you are now looking forwards. It is a gentle rhythmical sequence that should not cause you pain. It is to loosen up the spine… Remember not to cause any pain, if something is painful please stop short of the painful range. Do this eight times

Curl up

This is to work your abdominals region and is the most effective exercise of its type. This will work your abs whilst putting the least amount of stress on your lower back and discs. You will notice with this exercise the hands are placed in the arch of your lower back so that you retain the arch during the curl up instead of allowing the back to flatten. This also protects your lower back from harm.

Lie face up on the floor with one leg straight and the other leg bent so that the foot is placed on the floor. Place your hands under your lower back with your palms facing down. Place your tongue to the roof of your mouth. Slowly raise your head and shoulders of the ground making sure that you are not allowing your head to push forwards of your shoulders. You should feel that you have a steel rod in your spine going from your head to your shoulders and you lift your head and shoulders from the floor as one unit. Hold for 8 seconds and repeat 4 times. Once you have done this, change legs over and do another 4 sets. If you are unable to do this many, do as many as you can up to the point of fatigue. Remember that we are aiming at endurance levels so by doing this each day you will slowly build up so that you can do more and more. You want to be doing more sets of 8 seconds as opposed to trying to increase the amount of seconds you hold the curl up. Breathe deeply as you contract your abdominals.

A more advanced version of this is that when you do your curl up also lift your elbows off the ground.

Side Bridge

This exercise will work your lateral stabilizers which are crucial in giving you support for your spine.

There are two ways to do this. The first is an easier version which I suggest you start with until your muscles are better conditioned.

Lie on your left side with your knees and your upper body propped up on your left elbow and forearm. Place your right hand on your left shoulder and slowly raise your hips until your body forms a straight line from your shoulders to your knees. Hold this position for 8 seconds, breathing deeply the entire time. Do four reps, and then change over to your right side.

The more advanced version you straighten you legs. You have your legs straight and split apart with the top leg in front and the bottom leg behind. They should be about half a meter apart. I am not sure whether this is clear in my explanation so please just Google ‘side bridge’ and see an image if you are confused.

Bird Dog

This exercise works your lower- and middle-back extensors-the muscles that help you bend backward. The final part of your core muscles that need to be worked.
Once again you need to get down on your hands and knees with them about shoulder-width apart. Slowly raise and straighten your right leg and left arm at the same time. Hold for 8 seconds, breathing deeply throughout the exercise. Lower your arm and leg straight down, and then sweep them along the floor back into the starting position. That’s one repetition. Perform four repetitions, and then change sides. The important things to look out for here is that you are not overly arching your back when you do this. You need to keep that back in a neutral position engaging your stomach muscles as you do this. You should feel your stomach muscle contracting as you do this exercise. The other important factor is to make sure that you are not hitching your buttock up. In short, if you were to place a bar across your buttocks from one side to the other, when you lift your leg the bar should remain horizontal rather than being tipped up at an angle. You may need someone to check that you are doing it right.

And there you have it!

Do these simple exercise every day to protect your back, strengthen your core muscles-all of your core muscles, lift properly, sit and stand tall and say goodbye to your back pain.

one of the best ways to get lower back pain and sciatica

Posted by mark in Lower Back pain and your core | 0 comments

Why does your back hurt more in the mornings? I am going to explain to you why doing certain back exercises after just getting out of bed is one of the worst things you can do for your lower back.

Have you ever wondered why it’s easier to take your socks and shoes off at the end of the day as compared to when you put them on in the morning? Overnight you get taller and during the day you shrink! In fact it has been measured that by the end of the day you can be up to 2cms shorter (Reilly, tynell and troup, 1984). Put simply, overnight your discs fill up with fluid and during the day that fluid gets pushed back out again. It has been noted that 54% of this fluid disperses from the discs in the first half hour after waking.

Here is the important part!

That extra fluid in those discs puts a lot more stress on the spine and its ligaments. In fact, Adams and colleagues have measured that the disc bending stresses are increased by 300% and ligament stresses by 80% in the morning compared to the evening! It has also been well documented that a great majority of lower back injuries happen in the mornings.

Here is the tip:

Avoid full lumbar flexion in the mornings. You should already know that you should bend at your hips keeping your back straight (retaining the inward lordotic curve) to avoid putting pressure on your discs and ligaments. In the mornings it’s even more important. Did you know that by bending forwards at the hips with a straight lower back puts virtually no stress on the discs or ligaments? However, if you bend at the lower back putting the spine into flexion the shearing forces that you put on the discs and ligaments are enormous. This is one reason why many people bend forwards just to pick up something light like a pencil and ‘bang’, their back ‘goes out’. It is simply the straw that broke the camels back.  It is the same with a person who has a heart attack, the plaque builds up over years and then one day it just happens out of the blue seemingly. Your back can only take so much. Whether its bending forwards poorly all day at your job or lifting poorly or slouching, all of these have cumulative effects on your ligaments until finally your back gives in and ‘goes out’. And it’s completely avoidable!

Therefore  if you like to go gardening in the mornings and bend forward pulling out weeds, make certain you are either bending at the hips or go down onto your knees or if you can, get into a squatting position to protect your back. Another alternative is to bend forwards the way golfers pick up the ball. That is, have a straight back and bend forwards on one leg with the other leg extended behind you which acts as a cantilever. It’s an excellent back-saver.

I have written in other posts on lower back pain that bringing your knees to chest, touching your toes with a rounded lower back, rolling up into a ball etc puts enormous damaging forces on your lower back discs and ligaments and you should not do them-period. If you do these first thing in the morning you are putting yourself at an even higher risk of damaging your back-300% higher!

So to have a happier lower back:

No slouching, no bending forward with a curved lower back and definitely no sit ups!

For more information please feel free to email me at

http://boquetespa.com

Mark Perren-Jones

Lower back pain when sleeping

Posted by mark in Lower Back pain and your core | 0 comments

Quite often I see people in the clinic who can’t sleep on their backs or their stomachs without pain. When you know why this occurs you can set about fixing it quickly and easily.

It’s a very common problem and even more common is the advice people are given which does not fix the cause of the problem. You have probably heard that you should put a pillow under your knees if you want to sleep on your back soundly because it takes the pressure off your lower back. This may be correct but does not address the problem. A perfect example of this is a client who came in to see me last week for neck pain. She also happened to complain about foot pain as well. I noticed she has her feet bound into a pair of orthotic sandals so tightly that her feet were bulging around the straps. I asked her why she had done this and it was because if she walked bare foot or even in ‘normal’ shoes her feet were extremely painful. She told me it felt like she was walking on the bones of her feet. I asked her to take her shoes off and walk around for me. Her feet fell down and her arches no longer existed. I showed her how she could use her muscles to lift her arch back into place and then retain that whilst walking-and throw away those shoes. I asked her to start walking around the house bare foot and do some exercises to get her toes and feet moving again. She had not done any of this in years. When I saw her a week later she told me that for the first time she walked bare foot and without pain in many years. She also told me that it didn’t feel like she was walking on her bones anymore. I explained to her that now she was using her muscles to walk and retain her arch rather than letting the arch flatten and continually compressing the joints. The shoes she had did indeed give her some relief but continually worsened the problem. Her feet were getting weaker and weaker and also more painful. However, now she was addressing the cause of her problem and finally was going to fix it.

Likewise, if you have problems sleeping on your back or stomach there is a very good chance that it’s simply because your hip flexors are too tight. We tend to sit all day at our computers, driving to and from work or all day, then come home and sit on the couch in front of the TV. This continual sitting shortens our hip flexor muscles which then can cause us pain. When these are tight we can also have pain when standing for long periods (or even short periods of time). It is important therefore to keep these muscles lengthened especially if you are at a desk sitting all day. I do these stretches 5-6 times a day. All you need to do is start doing the lunge stretch. If you have pain sleeping make sure that you do it before you go to bed as well. Then your lower back will stop being pinched by your tight hip flexors and you will soon be sleeping pain free.

By the way, I don’t recommend you sleep on your stomach because it puts your neck in a poor position.

Here’s the correct way to do the lunge stretch:

The lunge stretch-the good, the bad and the ugly

The good…

• From a standing position place one foot back behind you in a comfortably wide stance. Make sure you keep the back foot facing forward, do not let it turn out. You may have to look at the back foot to check because it can feel like its straight when its not.
• Bend your front knee so that your front shin is vertical, this will put your weight through your ankle and protect your knee.
• Bend both knees a little and allow the back heel to come off the ground.
• Make sure your hips are facing forwards
• Ensure that your back is upright and not leaning forwards
• Your weight should be placed evenly between both feet
• You MUST tuck your backside underneath you by using your abdominals to lift your beltline up. ( a pelvic tilt)This decreases the arch in your lower back which will then give you a stretch through the front of your back thigh.
• Hold for 15 seconds and change sides
• Relax, breathe, smile and enjoy
• Do this several times per day to stretch out the front hip especially if you are sitting a lot ( who doesn’t these days)

…the bad and the ugly

• bending the front knee too much which stresses the front knee
• turning the back foot out
• arching the lower back
• leaning the body forwards over the front leg instead of being vertical
• allowing the front knee to fall inwards, keep your shin vertical
• forgetting to relax, breathe, smile and enjoy

Lower Back Strengthening Exercises

Posted by mark in Lower Back pain and your core | 0 comments

Mark Perren-Jones from the Haven Spa and Health Clinic

this is not what i am asking you to do-yet

Lower back strengthening exercises

These exercises are for all lower back pain. Those people who suffer from disc pain, sciatica and pain which is worse from sitting or bending forwards and is normally better when standing are going to benefit enormously from these.

These exercises work on several levels. You will be doing 3 exercises which build your lower back muscles whilst extending your back which also benefits the disc placement. This is extremely important. The fourth will strengthen your core muscles as well. Also, the simple act of sitting up straight all day will build your postural muscles as well. Your lower back will feel much better!

Before we get to the exercises I need to point out that you can do these lower back strengthening exercises until the cows come home but if you continue to sit poorly, slouch over the computer, bend and lift poorly you will not remove the causes of your back pain. You MUST assume good posture AT ALL TIMES. I advise you to get a lumbar roll to help you sit in a more upright position in your chairs. You need to be sitting with the lower back having its small inward arch always. If you do not, you will be in a slouched position which over stretches the lower back muscles and ligaments which cause pain. If you do this for long enough the ligaments that surround the discs can lose their integrity and the disc can protrude/herniate or slip (a disc doesn’t actually slip but that’s for another post). If it protrudes enough it will press on the nerves and the most common nerve that gets pressed on is at the bottom of the lumbar spine called the sciatic nerve. Therefore you must remove the causes of your lower back pain to remain pain free. If you were to cut your elbow but you kept bending your elbow the cut would not get a chance to heal. However, if you avoided bending your elbow for about a week your elbow would heal nicely. Your back is the same! If you have hurt your back or continually suffer from lower back pain, sciatica or disc pain you must implement these guidelines above. I have written much more on this subject in my back pain section of my blog.

Exercise 1: egg under your chest

• lie on your stomach with arms by your sides
• imagine you have a raw egg under your chest and you don’t want to break it
• therefore you have to lift your chest off the floor gently
• come up and down, don’t strain just do them comfortably
• do as many as you can and as you build up strength you can hold for longer and also do more repetitions
• you can also do this with your arms out in front of you when you have more strength
• breathe

Exercise 2: eggs under your thighs

• still laying on your stomach imagine you have an egg under each thigh
• therefore you have to lift the thighs off the floor to avoid breaking the eggs
• it’s the same as exercise 1, hold for a few seconds and then bring your legs back to the floor
• Increase your reps. and length of time when you are able to.
• Don’t strain and remember to breathe

Exercise 3: superman!

• Ok here’s your chance to become a superhero
• This is a combination of the two previous exercises
• Lift your legs and arms from the floor (hands are out in front of you like superman-yippee!)
• This is quite challenging so work up to it, after all not everyone can become a superhero overnight.
• The same as before, build up your reps. and the time you hold the position
• Be careful with your neck; do not overly arch it upwards. You can keep looking at the floor when you do this if its easier for your neck
• Don’t strain and remember to breathe

Exercise 4: the push up

• Hold a push up position
• Place your hands under your shoulders. You may also like to do these with your hands in a fist position
• You are going to hold this push up position but you MUST NOT HAVE AN ARCH IN YOUR LOWER BACK. You need to use your core muscles to keep your back from sagging. Keep your lower back straight. You may need someone to watch you so that they can tell you if your lower back is straight or not.
• Hold for as long as you can comfortably
• Breathe

And that’s it! Remember:

1. at all times use good posture
2. lift and bend properly, not with a rounded back
3. do these exercises daily
4. enjoy being pain free