Simple Exercises For Back Pain Relief

Back Pain Exercise: Modified Bent-Knee Sit-ups

To strengthen your abdominal muscles.

Start in the Basic Position lying on your back. Tuck in your chin and pull in your abdominal muscles white inhaling. As you start to exhale, simultaneously raise your head and reach your hands up towards your knees. You'll know you've raised your head far enough when you can see your navel. Hold this position for 1 second, then return to the Basic Position. Relax for a moment. Repeat.

Frequency: Week 1 - three repetitions; by the end of Week 2, six repetitions; by the end of Week 3, ten repetitions.

Advanced Version 1: Instead of keeping your arms at your sides, and then extending them towards your knees as you raise your head, fold your arms across your abdomen. This increases the level of difficulty slightly. Also, with your arms in this position, you'll actually be able to feel your abdominal muscles contract and strengthen. Ttry this variation after a month.

Advanced Version 2: Clasp your hands behind your head. Raise both your head and shoulders until they are just slightly off the floor. Hold this position for 3 seconds rather than just 1.

Take care not to force your head forward, as this will flex the neck too much. You can guard against this by keeping your elbows open wide, rather than bringing them in close by your ears.

Every person I know who does these back pain exercises, and every back practitioner who treated these people, agreed that strong abdominal muscles were essential for low back fitness and ultimately for back pain relief. However, there was also widespread disagreement about what was required to make your abdomen strong enough to help hold your spine in place and allow you to maintain good posture.

Don't even attempt straight-leg sit-ups. They put excessive strain on your lower back and take away from your efforts to strengthen your abdominal muscles.

By following this suggested plan, and exercising twice a day, you'll be doing 20 modified half sit-ups a day. At that point, if you're pain-free, you may choose to switch to bent-knee sit-ups, with your feet held down by a partner or hooked under a desk or sofa.

However, these advanced lower back pain exercises are not recommended for most back sufferers. Modified half sit-ups will safely give you all the abdominal strength you need to perform a full range of daily activities, from extensive sitting to manual work and athletics.

Exercise is very good for you, as as I'm sure you appreciate, but it's particularly good for you as a middle back pain treatment, if you observe a few user-friendly guidelines, and practice the correct workouts. Here's some easygoing and effective examples that should help relieve back pain and offer some gratefully received chronic back pain relief:

Shift and lift: This is an exercise that really can tone up the muscles in your lower back and buttocks (in particular) while sitting down. This is therefore something that you can perform while you are at work, because of the nature of the 'lifting' factor of the exercise, I would not really recommend that you do this while you're having a conversation with others, for example. They may get the wrong idea about you!

Even So, this is a very effective exercise for preventing stiff or aching muscles that might result from sitting in the same position for an extended period of time, and it will help strengthen those muscles too!

You start by sitting in your chair, relax and then clench the muscle in one buttock and hold for a couple of seconds, lifting your hip slightly as you do so. Relax and then repeat. Do this 15-20 times with each buttock.

Hip sway: This is helpful exercise to do if you are standing for an extended period of time, as it relieves the tautness in your lower back, legs and hips and energizes the blood flow around all of your lower body. It also reduces or even eliminates chronic lower back pain that some people suffer with if they are required to stand up for any length of time.

While standing upright, let your right knee relax and soften, while at the same time pushing your left hip out to the side. Pull the hip back in again, and repeat the same action 15-20 times. After that, relax your left knee, and drive your right hip out in the same manner.

Lifting: Grab a bag - a supermarket plastic bag, or anything else with extended handles for lifting will work for you. Put something fairly heavy in the bag - what you put in isn't important, providing it weighs at least a 3 or 4 kilos (filled plastic bottles are just right for this, because you know that a liter bottle of water weighs just about a kilo).

Keeping your arm straight down the side of your body, bend your legs until the bag touches the ground and then straighten your legs and lift the bag. When you get back up straight, hold the 'lifted' position for a few seconds, and then bend your knees to touch the bag down again.

Repeat 15 times on the one side of your body, and then repeat on the opposite side. When done correctly - that is, by bending at the knees and not from your back - this is a great exercise for strengthening the lower back, buttocks and hips, but it will also help to keep your arms and thighs in great shape.

Give us a shrug: This is a really easy exercise that not only helps keep your lower back in great shape, it is also a quick option for releasing the tautness that can build across the back of your shoulders. It will help to keep your arms and shoulder muscles toned and in trim at the same time. It's and exercise you can do pretty much anywhere so whenever you get a minute - get shrugging.

To start, simply shrug your shoulders as close to your ears as you can, then lift your arms up until they are at right angles to your body and turn your palms so they face outward. To finish, twist your head till it touches your shoulder and hold that position for a few seconds. Return to the starting position and do the whole thing again, but this time, tilt your head to the other side.