Help Alleviate Back Pain With These Exercises
If there is one thing chiropractors know about it is back pain. The majority of their patients go to them complaining of intense lower and upper back pain, caused from a wide variety of reasons. Sometimes the pain is from environmental circumstances, such as sitting at an office desk all day, sleeping on a bad mattress or driving long distances in a car with little lumbar support. Other times the pain is from physical issues that the patient has, such as scoliosis or sciatica. Either way, chiropractic treatments help alleviate the pain and allow the patients to experience a better quality of life.
However, sometimes patients are not able to visit the chiropractor as often as they would like. In these cases, many chiropractors recommend at-home therapies that individuals can administer themselves. Below are a few of these exercises that will help not only your back pain, but enhance your treatment when you are able to go back to the chiropractor.
Work Those Abs
Even though full sit ups would actually harm your back, doing partial stomach crunches may help strengthen your muscles and alleviate some of your pain. This exercise is easy to do, requiring you lay on your back with your knees bent. Make sure to flex your abs, making sure that you are using your abdominal muscles to lift your upper body and not your back or neck muscles. You can put your arms behind your neck, resting your neck in your hands to ensuring that you are not relying on it to raise you. This half crunch will keep the stress off your back while still strengthening your upper body.
Butterfly Stretches
As cute as these sound, the butterfly stretch is actually pretty intense. Place your hands on your shoulders with your palms faced down. Slowly bring your elbows together in front of your body without moving your hands. You will feel your back tighten up when your elbows becomes closer together. Hold the position for at least five seconds, if not more, in order to get a deep stretch. This should help provide pretty quick pain relief.
Get Your Hammies Extended
It may seem strange, but your hamstrings are actually connected to the muscles in your back. When you stretch them out, you will be able to offer your lower back some quick pain relief. By lying on your back with your knee bent, loop a towel under the ball of your straightened foot and slowly straighten your bent leg. This will begin to stretch your back. Hold the stretch for about thirty seconds, but make sure not to push yourself too far.
Used under Creative Commons Licensing courtesy of Alexey Ivanov