Got 15 minutes a day to STOP your Low Back Pain forever? Read on:

In this blog, I will share with you the ways I help clients and myself with low back pain. How to get out  – and STAY OUT – of pain. I will go over massage techniques, stretches, and a couple of bodyweight exercises you can do at home, as my clients and I have done for the last 25 years.

CAVEAT: Please see your doctor first before starting any exercise or stretching program to make sure you do not have something serious which requires medical care, surgery, etc. If your treatment plan consists of simply taking over-the-counter anti-inflammatories, then ask your doctor if it’s safe to begin stretching and exercising.

You may find, like me, that 15 minutes of stretching and a few exercise every day will remove your need to even take those pills!

New clients often complain about sudden low back pain 

“It feels like a knife stabbing into my low back!” Or, “I could barely get out of bed!” As they say this, they point to where it hurts by digging their fingers into the source of the pain, the bony part of their low back.

They are pointing at the all-important Sacro-Iliac Joint. This is often the source of intense pain which I used to have but have not had for over 25 years, thanks to what I’m going to share here.

This is the area where the lower body meets the upper body, where the triangular bone at the bottom of the spine, the sacrum, joins up with the hip bones, the iliac bones; hence, Sacro-Iliac Joint. It’s the most common low back pain I see. And in most cases, is simple to remedy IF you have 15 minutes a day.

According to PubMed, the National Library of Medicine, “Sacroiliac joint (SIJ) pain is an underappreciated source of mechanical low back pain, affecting between 15 and 30% of individuals with chronic, nonradicular pain.” [1]

Why is Sacroiliac joint (low back) pain so common?

Because the sacroiliac joint, AKA, the SI joint, is formed by the hip/pelvis bones where they join the sacrum, any tight muscles pulling on these hip/pelvis bones can alter the alignment of the SI joint. That misalignment can cause pain with almost any movement or in any position: lying down, sitting, walking, bending – everything! There is no escape.

The muscles which most often bring about this situation are those of the upper legs – the ones on the front, back, and sides, especially the quads in front, but also the hamstrings, groin, pelvic muscles, hip rotators, and glutes.

Oftentimes, clients come into my clinic complaining of SI Joint pain, and I find that they have recently started doing some quad-heavy exercise – like walking where there are hills, extra time cycling, running up and down the stairs, etc. The quads get tight and shortened, and they pull the SI Joint out of alignment.

The good news is that stretches, exercise, and massage can relieve SI Joint pain

Does this sound too good to be true? The pain is INTENSE! How can a few basic stretches help THAT?

That’s exactly the same way I used to feel until a fellow massage therapist FINALLY convinced me to try these same stretches, and it WORKED!!!

My fellow therapist would tell me, “Dude! If you want that pain to go away, you gotta stretch your quads!”

If you do NOTHING else, please stretch your quads, as I was told many years ago! It can affect your SI Joint immediately because the central quad attaches directly to the front of the hip bone. When quads are too tight and shortened, they will pull the hip bone forward and disrupt the SI Joint alignment. This = pain!

This ONE STRETCH  has helped me and loads of my clients immensely. Many of them have thanked me for showing them an easy way to correct their low back pain.

The other muscles listed above (groin, hamstrings, etc.) can also affect the SI joint and cause pain. They do this by attaching to other places on the hip bones, like the pubic and ischium bones, and from there, they indirectly pull the SI Joint structure out of alignment.

That’s why you will find stretching ALL those muscles listed will help to stabilize the alignment of your SI Joints and relieve the pain.

 

First Step: Get a Massage – to get a head start on getting out of pain

It will give you a headstart on getting out of pain, and it will inspire you to do the second and third parts – stretching and exercising (15 minutes a day!)

You can walk into a skillful, experienced massage therapist’s clinic and walk out later with a significant reduction in your low back/SI Joint pain.

How can that be? This is because massage therapy will manually stretch the muscles and tendons at the source of the SI Joint pain that we have been talking about.

From 30 years of experience as a massage therapist, I have seen and received feedback on techniques and muscle groups which really help relieve the pain, and that is where I focus.

I can focus the whole massage on just the sources of pain, the area between the knees and upper back, if that’s what someone wants. Or I can also do a full-body massage with some extra focus on those sources of pain.

Areas of massage focus while Face Down:

• The back, the long muscles running parallel to the spine
• The lower back, the muscles which attach to the hips/ilium bones, especially the Quadratus Lumborum
• The Pelvis/Hips: Glute Max, on the surface; the deeper Lateral Rotators, including the piriformis, under the Glute Max; and the all-important Glute Medius, on the side of the hips, down into the IT Band.
• The Hamstrings, especially the ones on the outer sides of the legs.
• Sometimes I give your quads a moderate to gentle stretch while you are face down, to get things started in that area.

Areas of focus while Face Up:

• The Quads, ADductors/inner thigh, and the IT Band.
• Occasionally, the Psoas, the major hip flexors, deep in the side of the abdomen, directly next to the hip/ilium bones.

Second step: STRETCH – the Legs and Pelvis: 

Unfortunately, we humans have to stretch. Like cats and dogs, who stretch several times a day, it is a critical part of fully functional, pain-free movement.

I am going to list the common names of the stretches I recommend so you search for them online. This way, you can find a version(s) of the stretch which suits you and your body.

You can see my blog: How One Stretch Stopped My Back Pain and Changed My Life, to learn more about my fave stretch – the Quad Stretch, plus my other faves.

My favorite stretches I recommend to my clients to get out of pain:

• Quad Stretch, my favorite version is the Quad Table Stretch
• Groin Stretch, AKA, ADductor Stretch
• Hamstring Stretch, I prefer the Seated Hamstring Stretch
• Hip Lateral Rotators stretch #1. AKA, the Piriformis stretch, one of the lateral hip rotator muscles
• Hip Lateral Rotators stretch #2, AKA the yoga Pidgeon Pose or Figure 4 stretch. Also VERY helpful.

Third step: STRENGTHENING of legs and pelvis:

My goal for this exercise section is just to mention the two exercises that I know help strengthen important muscles deep in the pelvis, thereby stabilizing the pelvis and SI Joint. This is what keeps you out of pain! I find these helpful for people who are runners or walkers and don’t do any other strength training.

I used to have intense low back pain while I was running until I discovered the stretches above AND did these two strength exercises.

• Forward Lunges. Alternating legs. No weights to start; use your body weight. This is also a balance exercise, so you need something to help you balance at first – like a chair next to you or hiking poles. Start slow, you will be VERY sore if you do too many!
• Deadlifts. Bodyweight or dumbells to start. Be sure to go down all the way, bending your knees, and come back up until you are completely straightened out. This is basically the Proper LIfting technique in an exercise.

These are just the minimum! The more thorough you are in strengthening your pelvis and leg muscles, the more stable and pain-free your low back will be. Once you get inspired, you can do a few other leg-strengthening exercises to help your low back even more:

• Groin/Hip ADduction exercises
• Hamstring exercises
• Outer thigh/Hip ABduction exercises
• Deep Hip Lateral Rotator exercise, a popular version is called the Clamshell. Another version is the Fire Hydrant. Once you’ve been doing it for a while, you can use an exercise band.

This completes the recipe for a pain-free low back

If this recipe for getting out of pain seems too much for you to figure out on your own, you can also go to a good, HANDS-ON physical therapist who can help you by assessing your situation and giving you similar exercises and stretches to alleviate your pain.

I do suggest you follow some version of this program to get out of low back pain, even if you do a lot of yoga, or run a lot, etc. Quite often, a yoga practitioner may lack strength and be overstretched, while a runner may be strong – but not in ALL the important places. A runner will quite often also be too tight (unless they are stretching religiously) in the places that create SI Joint pain.

The good news – you can get out of pain, forever, by DOING something besides pain pills.

This knowledge has changed my life in a huge way and allowed me to do things physically that I once thought were beyond me.

It WILL TAKE TIME, perhaps 15 minutes a day, six to eight weeks, for the bare minimum, but once you feel the relief, you will be super motivated to jump in more fully. There is nothing holding you back. The door is wide open, waiting for you to start!

Peter D. Black, LMT, Freelance Writer

Footnotes:

[1] – https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23253394/

Sacroiliac joint pain: a comprehensive review of epidemiology, diagnosis and treatment

Expert Rev Neurother. 2013 Jan;13