Video Transcription
Hi, Dr. Brad Holden, HealthFirst Spine & Wellness. We’re here to teach you how to take control of your health by optimizing the core four of spine, mind, food, and move. Today’s topic is going to be the lower back, or more specifically, the erector spinae muscle, and how do we stretch those muscles. A lot of times people have tension in their lower back, and they’re looking for a simple stretch that they can do to relieve that. So we’re going to cover that here today.
So the two stretches are going to be called child’s pose. A relaxation pose. One of the more simpler exercises, or stretches to do. Then we’re going to show you how to do a seated version of that you can do literally anywhere, whether that be in the airport, or at your office. So Nicole here is going to help us do that. So Nicole go ahead and do a child’s pose there for me. So you’re just going to start off on all fours, just like that. Then all you’re going to do is you’re just going to sit back on your heels just like that, and go ahead and let your forehead go down to the mat. Arms can stretch out in front of you.
So when you’re in this position it’s really good to take some nice deep breaths in. What I like to think about is as I exhale I imagine my chest sinking into my thighs, and just take four or five breaths, just letting the tension release out of the lower back. Now an alternate position you can do is to extend your arms behind you. Nicole, go ahead and reach your arms back behind you, palms up in the air just like that. Now you’re going to feel a little bit more stretch, maybe in the upper back with that.
So this is really good if you have the ability to be on your bedroom floor, or your living room floor. But what do you do when your lower back is tightening up and you just can’t get on the floor to do this, like in the airport. So let me show you a secondary way we can stretch these exact same muscles. Nicole, let’s go ahead and sit up. Have a seat on that box right there for me, and go ahead and face that wall there in front of you.
So now imagine she’s sitting in the airport, or she’s sitting at work, and her lower back is starting to tighten up. All we’re going to have you do is open up your stance there a little bit. You’re just going to drop your chest right between your legs, all the way down. Tuck your chin down to your chest. Similar thing. Just take some deep breaths in. On the exhalation really see if you can focus on letting the tension relax out of these muscles.
There’s some overall really good stretching principles, what I call the foundations. Go ahead and click the link above, and that will take to that foundations video, where we’ll kind of go over some different breathing patterns and things like that, to give you more detail on how to effectively hold any stretch.
So let’s go ahead and sit up there Nicole. So this kind of is addressing the erector spinae muscles. Again, you can do this stretch every day if you want. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you got value from this stretch, go ahead and subscribe to us. We’ll send you more goodness on a weekly basis on the core four to true health; spine, mind, food, and move. If you have any exercises that you would like to see how they’re done correctly, go ahead and post them in a comment below, and we will for sure make a video on them. Thank you so much. Have a great day.
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