Too many people suffer from low back pain. It often starts as a little twinge that comes and goes, but is completely manageable. Over time it turns into stiffness that causes you to slow down your daily activities and eventually it is constant aching that won’t go away. Don’t let it get that far! Try these 3 exercises to help decrease your low back pain.
Hallow and Bracing
- Start lying on your back, with your knees bent and feet flat on the ground
- Draw the belly button in and towards the floor. This is DIFFERENT than sucking your stomach in and holding your breath
- Contract your pelvic floor muscles
- For women this is the feeling of stopping your pee mid stream
- For men this is the feeling of walking into a cold pool/lake
- Brace – tighten up the rest of your core muscles
- Think back to when you were a child…or maybe even now…when someone would pretend to punch you in the stomach and you would tense up
- Hold these 3 contractions and take a few regular breaths. You should be able to maintain all 3 contractions while breathing
- Relax everything and repeat 5-8 times
Glute Bridge
- Start lying on your back, with your knees bent and feet flat on the ground. Heels should be fairly close to your bum
- Contract the gluteal muscles
- Try to squeeze the sit bones together
- Try to squeeze the sit bones together
- With majority of your weight in your heels, lift your hips off the floor, keeping the gluteals squeezed
- Slowly lower down, one vertebrae at a time, back to the starting position
- Repeat 8 - 12 times
Hip Flexor Stretch
- Start in a ½ kneeling position, with both knees flexed to 90 degrees
- Tilt your pelvis under (like a dog tucking their tail between their legs)
- Push the hips forward. You should feel a stretch in the front of the thigh.
- Get the stretch to a 7/10 intensity on a “stretch scale”; 1 being you don’t feel the stretch at all, 10 being it’s so intense it’s painful
- Hold the 7/10 stretch for 1 minute – as the stretch intensity subsides, DON’T push deeper into the stretch
- Switch sides.
Give these exercises a try and if you’re still experiencing back pain contact us for help!
info@delfit.ca . 705.733.0141
**Please note that while these exercises are safe for most, if you suffer from severe low back pain, you should seek advice from a healthcare professional before trying these exercises**