Exercises for low back pain - early
Description
Most exercises for your spine work to either strengthen or stretch the muscles and ligaments of your pelvis, belly, and spine.
The goal is for you to function as well as possible with little or no pain, and to prevent future injuries to your spine. To do this, your physical therapist will teach you proper techniques to move your spine, for either everyday tasks or sports activities.
Before doing exercises, have your doctor or physical therapist make sure you are doing them properly. If you have pain during or after an exercise, you may need to change the way you are doing the exercise.
If any exercise produces new pain or increases your pain, discontinue the exercise and talk with your physical therapist or doctor.
Straight leg raises
- Lie down on your back. One of your legs should be straight. The other leg should be bent at the knee with the foot flat on the floor.
- Tense up the thigh muscles on top of the leg that is straight out.
- Lift this leg up a couple of inches off the ground. (Your knee and toes on this leg should be facing towards the ceiling.)
- Move slowly and keep the muscles in your back relaxed. Take slow deep breaths.
- Slowly lower your leg to the starting position.
- Repeat this exercise 5 to 10 times for each leg.
Abdominal contraction or pelvic tilt
- Lie down on your back with your knees bent and feet flat on the floor. The lower part of your back will not be touching the floor.
- Place your hands on your belly, just below the ribs.
- Tighten the muscles in your belly and tilt your pelvis, so the small of your back presses against the floor.
- Hold for 5 seconds, then relax the muscles.
- Repeat 10 times.
Wall squats/wall sit
- Stand with your back against the wall.
- Move your feet 12 inches in front of your body, pointing straight out.
- Tighten the muscles in your belly and slowly bend both knees. Your back will be sliding down the wall.
- Bend your knees only.
- Don't go beyond 90 degrees with your knee bend.
- Hold for 5 seconds and slowly return to an upright position.
- Repeat 10 times.
Heel raises
- Stand with both feet pointing straight ahead.
- Your weight should be spread evenly between your feet.
- Slowly raise your heels up and down.
- If needed, stand near a wall and keep yourself balanced with the fingertips of one hand.
Prone buttocks squeeze
- Lie on your back with your legs straight out.
- Have your knees bent slightly (about a 10° to 15° angle).
- Squeeze or tighten your buttock muscles, holding for about 5 seconds.
- Relax the muscles for a few seconds.
- Repeat around 10 times.
Hip flexor stretch - from your bed
- Lie down with your back on a bed with both knees pulled to your chest.
- Your buttocks should be near the edge.
- Slowly lower one leg down toward the floor, while keeping the knee bent.
- Stop when you feel a gentle stretch across the top of your hip, over your groin.
- Hold for 20 seconds.
- Repeat 5 times on each side, switching back and forth.
Hip flexor stretch - from the floor
- Kneel with your left knee on a cushion or towel.
- Place your right knee in front of you, foot flat on the floor, with the knee bent at a right angle.
- Place your right hand on your right leg and your left hand on the left side of your waist.
- Gently shift your hips and weight forward toward your right leg until you feel a stretch in your left thigh.
- Hold for 30 seconds.
- Switch between sides.
Note: Your back should be straight and the muscles in your belly tight.
Reviewed By: C. Benjamin Ma, MD, Professor, Chief, Sports Medicine and Shoulder Service, UCSF Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, San Francisco, CA. Also reviewed by David Zieve, MD, MHA, Medical Director, Brenda Conaway, Editorial Director, and the A.D.A.M. Editorial team.
The information provided herein should not be used during any medical emergency or for the diagnosis or treatment of any medical condition. A licensed medical professional should be consulted for diagnosis and treatment of any and all medical conditions. Links to other sites are provided for information only -- they do not constitute endorsements of those other sites. No warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied, is made as to the accuracy, reliability, timeliness, or correctness of any translations made by a third-party service of the information provided herein into any other language.
© 1997-
A.D.A.M., a business unit of Ebix, Inc. Any duplication or distribution of the information contained herein is strictly prohibited.
All content on this site including text, images, graphics, audio, video, data, metadata, and compilations is protected by copyright and other intellectual property laws. You may view the content for personal, noncommercial use. Any other use requires prior written consent from Ebix. You may not copy, reproduce, distribute, transmit, display, publish, reverse-engineer, adapt, modify, store beyond ordinary browser caching, index, mine, scrape, or create derivative works from this content. You may not use automated tools to access or extract content, including to create embeddings, vectors, datasets, or indexes for retrieval systems. Use of any content for training, fine-tuning, calibrating, testing, evaluating, or improving AI systems of any kind is prohibited without express written consent. This includes large language models, machine learning models, neural networks, generative systems, retrieval-augmented systems, and any software that ingests content to produce outputs. Any unauthorized use of the content including AI-related use is a violation of our rights and may result in legal action, damages, and statutory penalties to the fullest extent permitted by law. Ebix reserves the right to enforce its rights through legal, technological, and contractual measures.
