Fixing lower back problems from sitting too much

[Roosh]

The sitting lifestyle has caught up to me in 2016 with bad lower back pain that usually started as soon as I woke up. From doing some research, the problem was linked to years of sitting down, which tightened some muscles and caused other to weaken.

Step 1: Stretch the psoas muscle. This muscle attaches to your lower back and wraps around to the front of your thigh. If you sit too much, it will be constantly contracted, shrinking in length and then pulling on your spine, causing pain. What helped me with doing doorway stretches every day (image C)

Within a week I noticed a big difference. After roughly two months, the normal pain is completely gone. I also do short bridges, which is supposed to strengthen unused muscles.

Step 2: Fix anterior pelvic tilt. While my daily pain was gone, I noticed that I've have lower back pain if I stand for at least 2 hours. This is due to my lower back doing all the work while my glutes and abs take a rest thanks having a deformed tilt of the hip that is caused by excessive sitting. From looking at my profile, I can see how my hip tilts down to the front, causing my butt to stick out slightly.

This is the most helpful video I found on fixing it:



Sitting for most of the day will definitely catch up with you eventually, but thankfully there are ways to fix it. Hope this helps anyone who has unexplained back pain.

 

[Travesty]

Get a motorized stand up desk and sit on a yoga ball when you get tired of standing. Feet planted firm as hell on the floor.


1) hanging from pull up bar or doorway frame make sure lower back is arched correctly, hips in place, 1 arm side hangs also good

2) stand flush against a wall, shoulders, hips, skull all in line, really let gravity align you and plant your feet firm as hell

3) layback on a large yoga ball, side stretches each way to loosen hip muscles, use hands and feet on floor as leverage to force MUCH a greater stretch

4) wall handstands, like reverse of hangs have perfect military push up form, really plant your hands firm as hell on ground under your shoulders let skull rest so gravity realigns. Do with toes on wall so your front faces wall while upside down, do at an angle where you can easily save yourself with your elbows if you fuck up or get tired - be careful with this one, helps alot though.

Lots of people have that anterior hip tilt. You really have to stand and sit like you are a male model or bodybuilder doing an ab show for people. Push your lower back in like you are sucking in your abs for Chip N Dales. This uses those huge vertebrae to stabilize you.

 

[TigerMandingo]

Roosh, for a second I thought that was you in the video in the Calvin Klein boxers

:gay:

 

[Vaun]

Read up on the Mckenzie Method, and find a practitioner. Literally fixed my back. McKenzie is a self practiced physical therapy routine, designed to give the patient the ability to perform their own physical therapy, on their own, without the need of a doctor or supervised PT setting. Initially you would have a McKenzie PT look at you, give you the exercises you need, then you take it from there. Its typically 1-2 visits. I did mine with a PT doc in Hawaii, over Skype, over 7 years ago. Now when my herniated disk flares up, I do the exercises, and it goes away very quickly. Its really the only method which blends science and self reliance; you get diagnosed, and then do the exercises when your back acts up.

Also, do back bridges every day. This is for general maintenance and strengthening the back. Bridges will build a bullet proof back that can withstand heavy squats and deadlifts, and blogging. Lately I have been doing them about 4x per week after my workout. I can hold a bridge for about 2 minutes. Your goal should be 3 - 3 minute bridge holds, a few times per week or more.

Bar hangs - Travesty explains this well, but hanging from a pull up bar several times a week is basically traction. You are putting your spine in traction, which relieves the pressure in the spine, and resets the back naturally. Its a pretty widely prescribed fix now for back issues. I do pullups ups several times a week and just hang if my back is tight.

Its a combination of McKenzie and Bridges that has made my back healthy and strong. When my herniated disk flares up I can barely walk. Those days are gone now, and I know what to do to make the pain go away.

 

[whatday]

Thanks, Roosh.

 

[komatiite]

Good post Roosh I will add some of those to my routine. I hit the roman chair for hyperextensions before every leg day/deadlift... another good stretch is the Cat Camel. I saw somewhere to never foam roll the low back so I stick with those two mainly.

 

[jipiro]

An inversion table do miracle too a couple of minutes a day!

 

[Engineer]

I saw somewhere to never foam roll the low back so I stick with those two mainly.

Can you or someone else elaborate? I love foam rolling my lower back, but don't want to mess it up if there is a solid reason against it. Thanks!

 

[sonoran_]

from sitting on my ass the whole day i had severe hip pain, imagine a rotator cuff problem but for the hips. Shifting positions at night would wake me up from pain.

This had happened before as well but I could usually "pop" my hip back into its place and become better. This time though I couldnt, so I started doing 10 mins of yoga in the morning and 10 mins at night for like a week and it finally healed.

 

[The Beast1]

I avoided this issue by working out daily. At least an hour plus of heavy lifting seemed to mitigate the worst aspects of sitting for too long.

 

[Nascimento]

I had this issue in the past, particularly APT. I even wrote a thread about it then: https://www.rooshvforum.com/thread-22465.html

I don't have perfect posture, so I still have it a little bit. But I mostly solved it. It's no longer as bad as it used to be.

One big component of APT and lower back pain is tight hip flexors. While psoas is part of the category, the quads are also involved in hip flexion, particularly the belly that runs down the centre of the thigh. A great way to get them loosened up and relieve the tension that results in APT is to foam roll... Directly on the upper thighs.

If it hurts a lot, it's because it's especially tight. It shouldn't hurt much at all. Take it slow. While different from stretching, the principle remains the same. It's not how much tension you apply, but the amount of time under tension that matters.

 

[kaotic]

I'd like to recommend the following - which have helped immensely since I sit in a chair alot AND do leg days twice a week.

For guys sitting in chairs try the following:

Probably my favorite stretch in a chair

Same kind of stretch but no turning (be sure to pull your knee into your body with both hands) You'll feel you glutes getting a good stretch:

Here is another to try as well:

Foam rolling your lower back IS NOT recommended - it can actually aggravate lower back issues.

A good read here:

http://blog.nasm.org/ces/foam-roll-low-back/

HOWEVER:

I roll my glutes out to lower backside of my hip

I do 2 versions:

Straight Leg Roll:

The leg crossover (This gets DEEP into your glutes and stretches it out)

These alone have helped alleviate lower back pain - there's so much more you can do to help.

I'd also like to check out the inversion table:

 

[cosworth]

Strength training with Med-X and Kieser machines really helped me . The lumbar extension they have is excellent .

 

[komatiite]

I saw somewhere to never foam roll the low back so I stick with those two mainly.

Can you or someone else elaborate? I love foam rolling my lower back, but don't want to mess it up if there is a solid reason against it. Thanks!

I had to dig deep into the recesses of my memory to find this! I saw it pretty recently luckily.

It's apparently controversial, some people say its ok. But here is a great reddit comment i saw:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Fitness/co..._are_awesome/dcukorl/?st=j0yicdcp&sh=2c2c41a2

One of the main ones is that your lower back doesn't have ribs connected to them and when you roll over the lower back, you put your entire bodyweight over the vertebrea and they will be moved anteriorly in a direction they were not meant to really go.
If someone has a history of lower back pain (especially due to a herniated disk), this can be extremely bad and cause a flare up, especially if one is overweight. (OTOH, some people will say they roll over their lower back all the time, but ask any physical therapist and they will tell you to not do it as well.)
Alternatives for your lower back pain:
Relax in a child's pose position,
Do some cat/cow movements and..
Stretch your hip flexors in a lunge because the HF's connect to the lower back and are often THE culprit for lower back pain due to their tightness.
Rolling over the GLUTES with a ball also provides excellent lower back pain relief as well.

Click the link for the follow up discussion and the links to other excersises.

 

[harveyspecter]

Sitting on yoga ball helped me a lot.

 

[Leonard D Neubache]

Kneeling chair.

There are a lot of pictures of these things but I chose this one because the toes are pointed forward rather than what I see in a lot of photos where people just let their feet hang loose.

I posted about these a few months ago. Mine really helped me after I injured my lower back lifting logs. Not a substitute for corrective exercises, but an aid in any case.

 

[godfather dust]

I can't comment on sitting necessarily, but I recently went to physical therapy and can confirm Roosh's point that stretching can do incredible things for the back. I've been doing them every day and I'm back in the weight room etc.

edit: I got the pain similar to Leonard D Neubache, I did a couple moving gigs for some extra pocket money and the 2 man team should have been 4. I should have said "screw this" but my ego got the better of me.

 

[Tytalus]

I've tried kneeling chairs, but they aren't for everyone. I found they made my knees super sore. What's helped me is moving to a standing desk at work. It's adjustable, so I can stand for 20 min, sit for an hour, then stand for 20 etc. Helps me out a lot.

 

[Suits]

Get a motorized stand up desk....

....and sit on a yoga ball when you get tired of standing. Feet planted firm as hell on the floor.

 

[Vinny]

I used to have regular pain in the back.
Three things that helped me:
1. Yoga
2. Swimming
3. Walking a lot

Not necessarily all at once. At the moment I am just walking a lot and I am fine.

You can combine few hours of walking every day with daygame.

By yoga I don't mean yoga classes. You don't even need a mat. All you need is on youtube. I have been using one video only for last few years, but it is in Russian.