3 Simple Lower Back Exercises to Fight Back Pain

Practically every day, you lift heavy things, carry weighty objects, and participate in activities that can cause serious back strain and pain. But you don’t have to be a victim. You deserve to be able to pick up hefty items and engage in any pursuits you want to without hurting your back. You can make this a reality by boosting your core stability, overall hip mobility, and lower body strength with a few simple lower back exercises. If you can improve all of these, you can protect yourself from pain.

For freedom from backaches and injuries, MD Now Urgent Care recommends the following three exercises for lower back pain. In addition to being surprisingly simple and very effective, you can do all of these back exercises at home.

Improve Your Core Stability

Your spine depends on your core muscles for stability. If they’re weak, your spine doesn’t get the support it needs and any lifting you do gets loaded onto your lower back. But by using all of your core middle to lift large or heavy items, you’ll divide the work equally among your abs, upper back, mid back, and lower back. 

Exercise 1: Low Plank

The low plank is one of the best lower back exercises for engaging and stabilizing the muscles of your core. It also is effective for your forearms and hands. If the standard low plank is too difficult at first, you should try to prop your forearms up on a sturdy bench instead. Once you increase your strength and stability, it will be easier to do a lower plank, and soon you’ll just be relying on the floor. 

Directions:

1. Put your forearms on the floor, keeping them parallel to each other, and keep your shoulders over your elbows. Push your feet into the ground for support.
2. Raise your body and hold it steady, keeping your shoulders aligned with your hips and feet. Tighten up throughout your belly and hold for 15 seconds.
3. Lower down for a quick break, and then repeat these back pain exercises twice more. 

Increase Your Hip Mobility

If you’re one of the many who lacks a full range of motion in the hips, you’ll end up arching your back and leaning forward to pick things up off the floor. This transfers all of the effort right to your lower back. To avoid this problem and the lower back pain it causes, squats are one of the most recommended back exercises at home. Squats are simply stretches for lower back pain that can greatly improve the flexibility to ensure that you can lift objects properly and save your lower back from bearing the total burden.

Exercise 2: Goblet Squats

To perform the goblet squat exercise for lower back pain, you’ll hold a heavy weight in front of you that protects you from falling as you bend. And by turning your legs outward, you’re opening your hips more than if your feet were facing directly in front of you. 

Directions:

1. Hold a 20-pound dumbbell with both hands toward your chest. Stand straight with your legs wider than your hips and toes turned to the 2:00 and 10:00 positions.
2. Drop your buttocks behind you while taking your knees in the same direction as your toes and placing the dumbbell further from your chest to help you balance. Keep your spine as straight as you can throughout the entire squat. Drop your buttocks until you feel like your lower back would bend if you went any farther further. Remain here for a moment.
3. Lift yourself back up to the original position. Continue for 15 repetitions and then rest and perform an additional set of 15.

Build Your Lower Body Strength

When you lift things up, your legs and glutes should bear most of the burden. And since they’re the largest muscles in your body, they need to be very strong. If they aren’t, then all of the effort falls on your lower back, which usually results in major pain.

Exercise 3: Forward Step-Ups

Step-up back exercises mainly engage your buttocks, but they also make your quadriceps stronger. By strengthening your lower body, it can allow you to perform any lifting and carrying you need to do with ease. In addition, this exercise for back pain also gives your core a workout, which is used keep you stable as you perform these exercises. 

Directions:

1. Choose a bench or box about 8″ to 12″ high, and then put your right foot on it.
2. Raise your left foot off the floor to meet it, while keeping most of your body weight on your right foot.
3. Without taking your right foot off the box, bring your left foot back down to the floor. Repeat this exercise for back pain 15 times on this leg, and then switch and perform 15 reps on your other leg.