Choosing The Perfect Exercise For Low Back Pain

[EricS]

A person suffering from low back pain can keep fit with any exercise. There is no single best exercise for low back pain. Your exercise regimen would depend on your age, fitness level and particular medical condition.

Swimming, weight training, Pilates, walking, running, aerobics, yoga -- all of these may work for you. But the condition of your lower back must be stable for you to take these up. If you have an inflamed back, the inflammation must be treated first with medicine or chiropractic care. You may start exercising only when the inflammation is gone.

Exercises should be person specific, i.e. customized for each individual. But there are some common sense rules of thumb too. For example, any exercise should help relieve pain, not aggravate it. So if it hurts even after you reduce repetitions, speed or degree of motions, stop doing it.

Contrarily, if an exercise makes you feel relief from pain, do it as many times as you like, slowing down if the pain recurs.

To sum up, do the exercises that relieve low back pain and avoid the ones that aggravate it.

[VideoBackCoach]

In my experience I have found that doing a specific set of exercises even with general back pain soreness is perfectly fine. In fact, I believe this soreness is a signal from my own body that it is time to exercise. Now, there's two types of back pain--general soreness and sharp pain. I believe the sharp pain is a signal that something more serious is going on. You should always seek a doctor if you experience sharp pain. Many times though, I have gone to the gym while experiencing general soreness and walked out feeling great. The exercises I do mainly consist of light impact cardio like using an elliptical machine or recumbent bike; and a light set of squats on a smith machine.

[admin]

PACE YOUR SELF

If you have days when you are feeling good and have less pain you can always try to do a little more. But do be careful and don't over do it.

Spread your workload out and don't feel you have to fit everything into that good day.

[gravelbelly]

Thanks for bringing up personalizing your exercise. Everyone is different, and what works for one may not work for another. I appreciate your approach.

[Chriswa]

PACE YOUR SELF

If you have days when you are feeling good and have less pain you can always try to do a little more. But do be careful and don't over do it.

Spread your workload out and don't feel you have to fit everything into that good day.

I agree with this 100%, just because your having a good day doesnt mean you should go over the top, if you do that you may be laying on a couch for the next week

[arnott67]

I've been struggling with lower back pain for years and have recently been trying the exercises described on my blog. The first exercise I find pretty hard but I'm persevering! The other three though are brilliant and have given me considerable relief.

Exercise one
One great exercise for strengthening the deep lower back muscles my physiotherapist called ‘The Crane’ – I guess he meant the bird! This is not easy and it will take some practice, but if you persevere every day, you will surely see significant improvements after around 10 days.

Stand on your left leg and stretch your right leg out behind you at about 30 degrees to the right from the line in which you’re facing. Reach out with your left hand towards the ceiling diagonally opposite your right leg. You can use your right arm for balance. Stretch your leg and arm out as far as they can go, slightly arching your back. Hold this for five seconds then, still balancing on one leg, curl your right leg up to your chest and your left elbow to meet your right knee. You should now be curled up in a ball but standing on one leg. Slowly stretch out again as far as you can go and hold for five seconds again. Repeat this five to ten times depending on how good you get at it. Then do the same on the other leg.

I usually do three sets of ten on each side. The progression to this is to do it with your eyes closed…. but this is really hard!! By doing this exercise, you are strengthening the deep intervertebral muscles that play a major part in stabilizing the spine.

Exercise two
Lie on your back with a cushion supporting your neck and your arms comfortably line by your sides. Slide your feet up towards your bottom so that your knees are bent at a little less than 90°. Your feet should be approximately hip width apart. Starting with your left knee, gently let it sink towards the floor on the left side. When you feel the right knee been pulled other to the left, allow it to follow the left knee. Once you reach the extent of this movement (take care not to overstretch) lift your right knee back up to the starting position and allow the left knee to follow. The right knee should carry on past the midpoint towards the floor on the right hand side and the left knee should follow until you reach the extent of this movement on the right side. Repeat this slowly and gently 10 to 20 times.

Exercise three
Lie on your back and your arms by your sides and your knees bent as in the previous example. Rotate your a hips downwards in order to make the hollow in your back. Rotate your hips in the opposite direction in order to make your back flat against the floor. This should in no way cause you any pain, if it does stop. Gently repeat the movement forwards and backwards around 50 times.

Exercise four
Lie on your back is in the previous examples or with both legs lying flat on the floor. Slowly and gently slide your left foot up towards your bottom until it’s about level with your other knee. Slide your foot back down until your leg is flat on the floor again and relax so that your foot rolls into its natural position. Repeat this 10 times. Repeat this another 10 times but this time tried to imagine sliding the foot up and down one toe at a time. What I mean by this is that the first time for should slide up and down with the weight over the big toe. The second time, try to imagine rolling your foot and leg out slightly so that the weight is directly over the second toe. The fifth time you do it you should be sliding along the outside edge of your foot in line with the little toe. Do the same again rolling your foot slightly inwards each time until you get back to the big toe. Repeat the whole exercise with the other leg.

Try them out for a week and post your experiences here.

[Leeann]

People should ALWAYS check with their doctor before beginning any exercise regimen, as they could further damage their spine.

[lifeisattitude]

For me swimming is the only real exercise I can get. It is actually kind of nice to get into the water and give my back a break from carrying my upper body weight 24/7. Because there is not much pressure on my back I actually can do a good amount of cardio which was a real blessing to find. After all I didn't want to have severe back pain and then be really overweight on top of that.

[Paininthebutt]

For me there have been a few exercise programs that have helped tremendously: 1. Alexander technique: has been great for my posture and great to reduce my slouching. 2. Multifidus exercises that I learned in an ebook I bought from eliminateyourbackpain.net. It's written by a doctor and the exercises are far more effective than the traditional physical therapy exercises I used to do. 3. Gentle yoga focusing on stretching my hamstrings has been key! Where there is back pain there are usually tight hamstrings and this has been a particular issue for me. So I do hamstring stretches everyday and then try to do the yoga poses three times a week as well. Losing about 10 lbs seems to have helped a little too from better eating. Good luck!

[Leeann]

Any back pain patient should ALWAYS consult their doctor BEFORE starting any exercise regimen. You don't want to cause any more damage by exercising than you already have. So make sure your doctor knows what exercises you will be doing, and approves of them beforehand.