By John Valentik MS, NASM-PES, FMS

When experiencing back pain, one of the first questions we ask ourselves is often, “What in the world did I do?” I have been asking myself this question as I’ve been recently experiencing some soreness in my low back. And if you’re like me, it’s not always crystal clear what caused it. It could’ve been the deadlifts on Monday (this was my first time doing this movement in a while, but I’d argue my form was good). Maybe it was moving things up and down in the garage and basement over the weekend preparing for a home project. Maybe it was spinning Charlotte around to the song, ‘you spin me round (like a record)’ or carrying Parker, who seems to be doubling in weight every two weeks! The truth is that while sometimes you can pinpoint the event, a lot of times you may never know. What’s important is what to do when you are experiencing low back pain.

Even though you may not know what the culprit was for your low back pain, you should gently assess what could be exacerbating the issue. Does it hurt bending over to tie your shoes, rotating your body, or arching your back? Once you identify this, it’s important to keep those movements to a minimum until some of pain subsides. Stretching that provides some relief is great but be cautious moving with big ranges of motion as you could injure yourself even more. It’s also possible that the relief your soft tissues feel could be causing more stress on your vertebrae. Just as much as over doing it can be detrimental, doing nothing can actually cause it to stiffen up more. So, avoid what hurts, lightly address what provides some relief, and avoid anything excessive.

Let’s discuss some things you can do to not only assess the pain but address it. Cat/dogs are an excellent low stress way to assess spinal flexion and extension. Only attempt this on the floor if it doesn’t hurt to get up and down. Otherwise, try doing it on your bed. Typically, a prone pressup or ‘cobra’ is a helpful exercise when your back is irritated. If extension (aka arching) hurts, this should be avoided. Child’s pose is a good stretch if flexion doesn’t cause problems, just be cautious of overdoing the range. This 1/2 kneeling stretch with reach found in our previous blog post can also aid in taking stress off of the low back.

While stretching can be beneficial and is often our first remedy attempt, there are other avenues that can be just as beneficial. Activation in the right areas will protect a tweaked back. It’s just important to be conservative in what activation exercises you select. This region of the body has a name in fitness: the lumbo-pelvic hip complex, or LPHC. Say that five times fast! This region has its name because they are all integrated with each other. Frequently sore and achy backs have strong correlations to tight hips, and weak glutes and abs! So, if we can conservatively fire the glutes and abs, it will help turn on more posture muscles to take stress off the low back muscles. Below is a video that provides some examples of the above-mentioned stretches and activation exercises. If you have any pain, nix it until that subsides.

I will be the first to tell you that I am not a physical therapist or doctor. When in doubt, please consult with one or both. In addition to the above tips I’ve provided, throwing a heating pad on can also provide some temporary relief. If cleared by a doc, anti-inflammatories might help take the edge off as well. To close, if you notice that your back gets cranky more often than you would like, I recommend thinking long and hard about what the potential culprits are. And when in doubt, stretching your hip region, and strengthening the glutes and core are never a bad idea.