Corelife’s fitness program is designed to enhance functionality through a mindful and movement based approach.  Our program focuses on healthy pain-free activity so that you can live pain free and use exercise to enhance your overall health and well being!

For 80% of adults, lower back pain can turn any form of movement into an unpleasant activity.  Instinctively coping by avoiding painful motion, our lifestyles can easily become more sedentary.  Our bodies were designed to be active!  Limiting those movements only limits our bodies further and prevents us from engaging in those activities and pastimes that we love. 

So, you may be asking – what can be done to avoid this painful cycle?  By exploring common causes and movement based exercises, like the ones outlined below, we can understand how lower back pain develops and what we can do to treat it.

 

Common Causes of Low Back Pain

Prolonged Sitting

  • Sitting causes the hip flexor muscles to tighten, shifting our pelvis out of place.  This may trigger tension and limit mobility.
  • Sitting weakens glute muscles, causing underactivity within the region.  Other muscle groups may become overactive as a result.

Poor Spinal Stability

  • Weakened spinal muscles create instability within our spine, potentially leading to excessive movement.  This will predispose an individual to injury such as, bulging disc and/or degenerative disc disease (arthritis of the spine).

Unhealthy Movement Behavior

  • Muscle imbalance and faulty movement patterns may lead to joint misalignment. Misalignment of the hip joint may trigger an inflammatory response causing low back pain.

 

Try these Movement Solutions!

Try these exercises 3x a week.  This 5 minute “corrective exercise” routine can alleviate back pain by activating muscle groups that are dormant throughout the day.

 

Leg Raises (to strengthen quads) – 20 controlled supine leg raises

  1. Lay on your back.
  2. Bend one knee and straighten the other leg.
  3. Lift the straight leg to the height of the opposite knee and then return to ground while keeping straight.
  4. Switch legs every 10 repetitions.

 

 

 

Glute Bridges (to strengthen glutes)- 20 controlled bridges

  1. Lay on your back with your knees bent and feet planted on the ground.
  2. Drive through your heel and mid-foot to lift your hips off the ground.

 

 

Figure 4 (to stretch piriformis) – 20 seconds (each side)

  1. Lay down with both knees bent.
  2. Cross one leg over the other (crossed ankle or foot should meet the knee.
  3. Pull the crossed leg into your chest by holding your hands around your bent leg hamstring.   

 

 

For any questions about these exercises, please contact your local CoreLife trainer.  Our team is here to help!