Helpful Stretches for Low Back Pain Relief

Welcome to Get Healthy U TV. I am Chris Freytag, and I, today, I'm going to show you, how to stretch your lower back. The number one question we get to the website and one of the number one questions that people ask their doctor is how to eliminate low back pain. Now, if you have had back pain for over three months that is now called chronic back pain. And as people get older, what happens is their spine gets older too, and those little watery discs between each vertebrae start to compress, degenerate, herniate. There's lots of different words for it, but it starts to cause some discomfort. If you have chronic nerve pain going down your legs you need to consult your doctor. I am not a doctor, but I'm gonna tell you what's worked for me in these next 10 minutes, and I'm gonna show you how to pretty much eliminate that back pain if you are consistent. The number one word I'm gonna use today is consistency. It's not what you do once, it's what you do every day. So stay with me these first five minutes I'm gonna show you how to stretch with a massage ball, which is super important, and then I'm gonna show you some other stretches on the floor that you can do every day. About five, six plus years ago I could barely bend over and do a burpee. My back was so tight, it hurt so much. It was all the back extensors that surround those five low lumbar in your back and they were super tight. I had an MRI to make sure that nothing was completely wrong. My disks were degenerating but for my age it made sense. And my doctor said, you need to stretch. I started this routine and I literally don't have back pain anymore. I do it daily, 365 days a year for about five minutes in the morning. And this little massage ball is your friend. Now typically, some of the back pain is coming from really tight muscles so the benefits of stretching the back you're gonna reduce tension in those muscles that are supporting the spine, that tension in those muscles at around the five lumbar cause the pain to worsen. And until you get rid of all that tightness surrounding the back it's gonna be very hard to get rid of the pain. You're gonna improve your range of motion in your back, and you're also gonna reduce the risk of disability later on in life because chronic pain leads to some long-term problems. This little massage ball there's many different companies that sell it. It is not quite as soft as a tennis ball, but it's not as hard as the lacrosse ball. It's somewhere in between. It's about the size of a tennis ball and it is literally a life changer. So I'm gonna get down on the floor and show you what I do daily for about five minutes every single morning. When I get up in the morning my back is a little stiff, because of my age I'm in my fifties and that's what happens, so this really does help. I take the massage ball and I place it on either side of my spine. Never put anything on your spine, never use a foam roller directly on your vertebrae. That's why this little massage ball is so great because you can take it on either side. I'm gonna lay down and I'm gonna place it on this side so you can see. Now I start with it kind of around my glute where my QL is, where everything attaches, and I just find that sweet spot where there's tension. You move around, you feel that spot and when you feel it, you press your body weight into it. You inhale and exhale. And to make it even more intense I take my leg off the floor. Now I'm really pressing my body weight into it. And then I begin to add some mobilization in the leg, move it up and down. I can just feel that trigger point, that tension spot, releasing as I move my leg up and down. Now, for some of you, if you've got really bad back pain you may not even be able to lift your leg in the air. Now, after I hit that spot, I'll move it up a little higher just on either side of my spine so, you've got those five lumbar you've got these really tight muscles. Just move it around, find that sweet spot, lift your leg up which is gonna give you a little bit more body weight pressing down into the massage ball, and then move it down and up. Move that leg around, maybe you bend the knee, bring it in. I can just feel those tight muscles just starting to release. And like I said earlier, if you can reduce the tension in those muscles that are surrounding and supporting the spine, it can lead to pretty much getting rid of that pain if you are consistent. Now, maybe you have another part right up a little higher or on either side, you need to move it around and then I'm gonna take it on the other side and repeat. Again, about five minutes in the morning of doing this every day has literally changed my life and many other people. I keep this in my suitcase when I travel, I keep one in my gym bag that I can use after a workout at the gym. I keep one in my bathroom where I do this every single morning. I'm gonna sit up one more time and I wanna kind of show you where I am placing this. So, right here, where your spine, everything comes together at your sacrum, am placing it right at the top of my glute where I really... right where you feel like you might want someones thumb to press in right there. And then I move it up a little higher on either side of my vertebrae, my lumbar, and just get those trigger points to work out. This is key. You have to do it daily. You have to do it for a couple minutes on each side, and it will help you reduce the chronic pain on either side of your of your back if it is due to muscle tension. All right, now, here are some other stretches that you can do that also work. So, I'm gonna just lay down on the ground, length in one leg, take the other knee into the chest and give it a light pull. As you are doing this, you are lengthening the hip flexor in the floor on the ground, and you're also lengthening through your glute, your hamstring, and of course, pulling up into that sacrum low back area. Just pull it in, breathe. And then you can take that knee and you can toggle it side to side. So just pull it to one side and then pull it across your body, all the way, see how that feels. Go side to side. This is gonna help even reduce a little bit of pain in your back. Do it on both sides. Sub-pulling that other knee in, inhale and exhale, feel that hip flexor lengthen you're getting a little bit of a stretch through the glutes and the hamstring, pulls up into your low back toggle it from side to side, open the hip, and then pull it across. And open, then pull it across. Again, it's all about that word consistency. It's not about doing it once a month or even once a week, it's about doing it every single day. I'm gonna come into a seated twist so what I want you to do, is sit up as tall as you can. So you're not here, but you're gonna sit up tall. You're gonna take one foot across the top and then make sure you're sitting super tall. Then pull that opposite arm around the knee and you're gonna feel it all the way down and around, right here. So this is where your glute, your piriformis, your QL, they all come in and attach to your back extensors, pull it in nice and strong and breathing, And you wanna hold your stretches for about 40 seconds, 20 to 40 seconds. 40 seconds would be optimal if you have the time. And then get the other side again, sit up as tall as you can, don't slouch. You wanna sit up nice and tall, pull in and then rotate through your spine. So you're getting that really good stretch through your spine also breathe all those little back extensors, good. Inhale and exhale. And then we're gonna move into two other stretches that are super useful. Again, daily. Coming from the world of yoga, cat cow stretch. We'll start with that one. It's super simple, but it does a lot. On all fours, right here. Start with a neutral spine. So, one long linear line you're gonna go to cat stretch, where you take your eyes, you look for your belly but really arch up, and get some really good flection in your spine. It's hard to get flection through that low back do the best that you can to really tuck your pelvis under, and then move to cow's stretch, where you take the crown of your head away from your tailbone and get extension. So go from flection to extension, working on mobility through those vertebrae, not only your low back, but your entire spine. Right here, do this about five to eight times if you can, then we'll move into something a little bit more dynamic. Child's pose to Cobra pose. Child's pose, you're dropping your glutes to your heels which is hard for a lot of people. So do the best that you can ,and reach your fingertips out. As far as you can, dropping your belly between your knees. You'll feel this whole stretch up the low back through your sacrum all the way up through your shoulders, and then pull forward to Cobra where you drop your hips forward. Just relax into it. Now Cobra looks different on everybody. So sometimes you might need to bend your elbows a little bit, you'll see how it feels, and then toggle between the two poses. Here's your child's pose stretch. Here's your Cobra, open again, flection and extension through the spine, working on mobility, right there. Do that one more times and we'll end with happy baby pose. Now, as your back starts to loosen up this one starts to feel really good. So you're going to take bare feet or with your shoes on, grab the toes of your shoes or grab your big toes, put your head down to the ground and try to keep your tailbone on the ground. So instead of rolling your tailbone off the ground, you're working to lengthen it down. It takes some stretching, just breathe into happy baby, deep breaths, inhale and exhale and that's pretty much it. So, it's painless. It's all about taking care of your back every single day. This little massage ball is the game changer. Again, daily release up those muscles, might be the differentiator that you're looking for. It did change my life. It did change what was happening in my back. So again, take it with a grain of salt but do what works for you. Thanks for joining Get Healthy U TV, we'll see you again soon.