How To Loosen Tight Lower Back Muscles With 2 Stretches In 2 Minutes

How To Loosen Stiff Lower Back Muscles

There are all kinds of great exercises that you can do to relieve lower back stiffness, but many people who have back pain have trouble getting down on the floor or getting back up from the floor to do exercises.

So here are two exercises that you can do to loose tight lower back muscles without having to get down on the floor.

Back Stiffness Stretch #1

The first stretch is for people who have tight lower back muscles when they first wake up in the morning.

This is actually probably my second favorite of the two exercises. However, you can do it while you're sitting down before you first get out of bed.

There is a caveat though. You want your feet to be able to touch the floor.

So, if you have a higher bed and your feet don't touch, you may want to move to a chair before doing this.

This exercise is for tight lower back extensor and rotator muscles.

The reason this exercise is so beneficial for people with back stiffness is that excessive extension and rotation are a major causes of lower back pain.

So those are the muscles that often tend to get stiff and tight.

How to do the the stretch

The way that you do this stretch is to lean forwards while bringing one elbow towards the opposite knee.

So you get a little bit of forward bending (flexion) in your lower back and then a slight bit of side bending and rotation.

If you're doing this right, you should feel a good stretch along the side of your lower back.

Depending on how tight your lower back muscles are, you may or may not be able to get your elbow all the way to your knee.

Just go as far as you can comfortably.

Then hold that for about 30 seconds.

Next, switch sides and stretch in the other direction for 30 seconds.

You may notice that you're able to go farther in one direction than the other.

And that's okay.

It's common to have the muscles on one side of your back be tighter than the muscles on the other side.

So that's the first exercise.  It should only take you about 1 minute in total.

Back Stiffness Stretch #2

This is one of my favorite stretches to loosen tight back muscles.

In fact, I do this one a lot myself.

How to do the stretch

Stand facing toward a door holding on to a doorknob.

Make sure the door opens to the side opposite of the direction that you're standing on. This way, when you pull on the knob, you're pulling the door shut.

Grip the doorknob with both ands and bend forward to make you back flat like a table.

Learn backwards so that you feel a stretch in the lower back as well as a stretch in the lats.

This creates lower back flexion as well as upper back extension.

Variations of the stretch

You can add variations, again, adding in a little bit of side bending one way.

This gives you a stronger stretch on the side of your body that is toward the ceiling.

Again, you may notice that you need it more on one side than the other.

You can spend a little bit more time doing it the stretch towards that side.

You want the overall stretch time to be close to about a minute or so.

Conclusion

So in about two minutes, you can loosen up your tight back muscles.

Hopefully, this will help you feel better throughout the day.

However, it is important to figure out WHY you got stiff in the first place.

After all, if you don't address the root cause of you lower back stiffness, then it's likely to come back.

Need Help For Lower Back Stiffness and Pain?

If you live in the St. Louis area and need help for back stiffness and pain, we'd be happy to help you out here at More 4 Life. Just tap the button below to request an appointment with one of our specialist physical therapists.

Request An Appointment