Back Stretches

Back stretches are probably the most common used tool in back pain relief. The problem is that most stretches fail to target the main causes of your back pain.

Read on to find out what you must do and the mistakes you must avoid. If not back pain relief may not happen.

First, you understand the role of stretching is to relax muscles. This is obvious, but in most cases, people stretch and muscles do not relax. The muscle tightens again almost instantly and the benefit of back stretches disappears.

Back Stretches - what must you do

When you stretch there are a few things you must do. If not the benefits of stretching is almost zero.

There is three main areas of stretching technique. The first is knowing what to stretch. This may sound obvious but most people use generic stretches and target the wrong muscles.

Being able to identify which muscles are tight is easy. All you do is stretch each and see which are tight. The mistake is that most people only stretch the muscles in the area of pain.

Your muscles and joints work as an entire system. Think of when you walk, your right arm and left leg move at the same time.

If you tighten muscles in your lower back, then you may also have muscles tight in your upper back. You need to check all the muscles to make sure you remove all the issues.

The second area is knowing how to stretch. The standard back stretches where you place the muscle in tension and then hold it there for a minute or more are poor. They have a low success rate at relieving back pain.

The best types of stretches use a rebound relaxation of the muscle. This means the muscles relaxes and you also build strength at the same time. Something you need to do to help prevent the muscle tiring.

Tired muscles tighten up, which is why you need to build strength also. The final area is knowing when to stretch. This is the most important as knowing the best times to stretch allows the muscles to relax quicker and for longer. This leads into the mistakes people make...

The stretching mistakes

Probably the biggest mistake relates to the time you stretch. When you stretch you are trying to relax muscles. Using them immediately after you stretch therefore negates the entire reason you stretch.

You must rest a muscle after you stretch it. That is why stretching just prior to bed is best.

Another mistake people make is stretching too far. You should only stretch until you feel the muscle tighten, not pain.

If you stretch into pain the muscle reacts by tightening. Once again negating the reason for stretching. The "no pain, no gain" rule is dead and buried.

Pain means "please stop", so using back stretches and creating pain is the opposite to what you want to achieve.

Avoid these two main mistakes and follow the simple 3 step approach to stretching and muscles will relax and back pain relief will happen.

The first essential step in back stretches

The first step in stretching is finding the cause of your back pain. The causes do not relate to how you sit, stand, lift or bend. The causes are the tight muscles and distortion patterns that exist in your spine.

Finding these distortion patterns allows you to target the areas quickly and relieve back pain.

You can use the same techniques to monitor your progress and watch as the patterns change. These diagnostic techniques allow you to assess your muscles and joints, to find the true underlying causes.

What is the best approach to ease your back pain?

To get long lasting results you must both remove the symptoms and the cause. First you must identify which spinal imbalances are present, then attack the symptomatic processes. This can be achieved by using many techniques from ice/heat, Acupressure and anti-inflammatory measures. Then you must perform corrective techniques that target the spinal imbalances.

The principles of Spinal Balancing address the both the pain and the root cause of the condition that is responsible for your lower right back pain. Through self assessments, your individual spinal imbalances can be identified, and a targeted corrective program can be developed for your specific needs.

Continue to the ... 3-Step-System for Back Pain Relief!