Back Stretches

"Do Back Stretches Actually Work?"

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.

Does this mean you shouldn't stretch?

No, it just means you need to learn the most effective ways to stretch and understand more about the actual back pain causes. Once you know what causes your pain you will know that stretching is not enough to get long lasting results.

But first...

You understand that 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 are 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. Or spend countless hours stretching muscles that are not part of the problem.

Being able to identify which muscles are tight is easy. All you do is stretch each and see which are tight. The other mistake made 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.

You also need to know...

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 is where you stretch the muscle until you feel it tighten slightly and then gently contract or tense the muscle.

This causes the muscles to relax faster and you also build strength in the muscle 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 most important aspect of stretching is not how or what to stretch, but 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 - when should you stretch?

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.

Why?

You stretch the muscle and then allow it to relax while you sleep. The muscle is therefore trained to stay relaxed for longer and hence quicker to ease the tension that causes your back pain.

To reinforce this process it is best to stretch once more when you wake in the morning and again after your days work. Although you can't necessarily rest the muscle after these stretching times, they do reinforce the habit for the muscle to relax when not in use.

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 step to take though is not jumping right into a stretching routine...

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.

The first thing you should do is request a copy of our Free Relief Guide to learn why back stretches are an important part of back pain relief, but not the only part.