How To Fix Lower Back Pain: Three Areas To Stretch And Mobilize
To fix lower back pain we need to assess and address the root causes. Lower back pain in adults is most commonly caused by too much impact on our body over too long a period of time. Which means to fix lower back pain our focus needs to be on how to limit impact on our spine. Stiff and tight joints contribute to higher impacts on your body in a number of ways. Which is why it's important to find ways to improve our mobility and flexibility to solve lower back pain.
With so much information out there it can be hard to know where to start. The last thing you would want to do is waste time stretching areas that don't need to be stretched or do something to make your pain worse. I've ot your covered. The following are the three most important areas to mobilize that I've personally used to help 100's of adults fix their lower back pain.
How To Fix Lower Back Pain
Impoving movement an building strength is the best thing you can do to keep active and maintain your lifestyle as you get older. Improving mobility of these three areas will help limit impact on your joints for less pain and arthritis.
1. Mid Back
Many of my clients have incredibly tight mid backs from hours rounded forward in front of a computer. Long hours in this position cause physical changes in the joints and muscles that limit their flexibility. This can be a problem. When we lack mobility in our mid back, our body will sacrifice stability in the low back to perform a lot of our daily activities. This leads to more impact on your spine and contributes to lower back pain.
The best way to improve mid back mobility is with a foam roller. Our mid back primarily moves in two directions. Flexion/Extension and Rotation. Which is why I always include an extension and rotation mobilization to any routine to improve mid-back mobility and fix lower back pain.
2. Ankle
Yes you read that right. Ankle mobility is a HUGE player in low back pain. Stiff ankles contribute to back pain in a few different ways. First, tight ankles limit your ability to absorb the impact of your steps. This leads to more impact up the leg and into the low back. Next, tight ankles also cause movement compensations that can place more impact on your low back.
Improving stiff ankles is an important part of any plan to fix lower back pain. When I work with clients I usually have them start with the exercise below. It's simple, easy, can be done from home and is a great way to improve ankle dorsiflexion.
Read More About How Stiff Ankles Contribute To Back Pain
3. Hips
The hip is a big and complex joint that moves in almost every direction. And similar to our mid back, long hours of sitting or not moving can lead to hips that don't move very well. Tight hips can cause lower back pain in a number of ways. Tight hip flexors can pull on your spine. Stiff joint capsules can cause a number of movement compensations that place more impact on our spine (butt wink example).
Which is why it's important that we assess and address hip mobility as a fix to lower back pain. Because the hip is such a big joint there are countless ways to stretch and mobilize. I usually have people start with these two mobilizations to improve flexion/ extension and stretch the hip capsul and groin which common limits hips movement.
Mobilizine your ankle, hips, and mid back can reatly dimish the back pain that you experience through your day. Remember, chronic lower back pain is caused by too much impact on the spine over too long a period of time. Improving mobility of these areas will limit the impact that goes through your back to treat the root cause of lower back pain. Give it a try and let me know what you think!
And don't forget to check out our free guide 'Solving Pain With Strength' to get the exact program we've used to help 100's of adults overcome chronic join t pain and maintain their lifestyle as they get older.
