Back Pain Relief Exercises & Stretches

These back pain stretches and exercises are for general back pain like soreness from overworking your back or if you've pulled a muscle. If you know your specific back pain diagnosis, can check out the back pain section of my website for more specific exercises and stretches. See Doctor Jo’s blog post about this at:

The first stretch is called the pelvic tilt. You will roll back onto your back with your knees bent. You want to imagine pushing your belly button into the ground, or push your back flat onto the ground like you are squishing something. You can put your hand under the curve of your back, and try to push your back into your hand. Make sure you are breathing and not holding your breath while doing these exercises.

Next you will do a bridge. Push your bottom up off the ground, but try to do this slowly, and do one segment of your back at a time curling upward. Then slowly go down the same way, one segment at a time.

Now you will do a single knee to chest stretch, bend one knee and bring your leg up to your chest as far as you comfortably can. Hold this for 30 seconds and do it three times on each side. Next, bring both knees to your chest, and hold it for 30 seconds doing it three times. This is called a double knee to chest stretch.

Then try some gentle trunk rotation stretches on your back with your knees bent in hooklying. Gently rotate your bent legs from side to side. You can hold them on each side for 3-5 seconds or you can continuously rotate them back and forth. Again, try to keep your lower back on the ground. You can start off with 10 and work your way up to 20-25.

The next stretch is the prayer stretch. Bring your butt back onto your heels, and keep your arms straight out. Relax your head down to the ground. Hold it for 30 seconds, and do it three times.

Finally, you will do a combination move where you start in a plank position, and go into an upward dog yoga position. Hold that for 3-5 seconds, and then make a smooth transition into a downward dog position. You can go through this motion 3-5 times.