What do you do to strengthen your lower back?

Soldato
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17 Jun 2012
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I'm dying after any activity that requires some stress on lower back even mowing grass, changing a tire etc.

What's your secret?
 
Standing up more rather than sitting down

strengthens the muscles around your lower back used to suffer lower back pain until i gave up desk job and on my feet that was over ten years ago and never had back pain since
 
I have lower back problem [lumbar discs 3 and 4 I think]
Physiotherapists exercises are
Cross arms over chest
Drop/lower right shoulder
Twist /rotate torso to the left as far as is reasonably comfotable
Repeat 10 times
Then 10 in opposite direction
So drop/lower left shoulder etc
X10 could be increased depending how bad your back is
Can do a few times daily
Though as with all exercises don't go crazy right away
Takes couple weeks or so to start feeling the improvement
 
Adopt good posture, learn how to brace your core properly, strengthen and increase your skeletal muscle tissue through resistance training so you can perform manual tasks without crumbling into dust.
 
Certain things may limit what exercises you can actually do
Your age~yeah I know some older people can still do stuff lol so that ones a bit controversial but nonetheless at say 60 you are going to be able to do less than when you were 20 not everyone ages as well as some

Do you actually have any underlying medical conditions?
Advising something too hard core with out knowing that would be bad to be honest
What ever you decide to do don't go crazy immediately or you will be in agony for days if your back muscles aren't used to it
If you have a garden you could set aside a small area that you just use for digging over. Digging certainly does help with back strength and legs too
 
Certain things may limit what exercises you can actually do
Your age~yeah I know some older people can still do stuff lol so that ones a bit controversial but nonetheless at say 60 you are going to be able to do less than when you were 20 not everyone ages as well as some

Do you actually have any underlying medical conditions?
Advising something too hard core with out knowing that would be bad to be honest
What ever you decide to do don't go crazy immediately or you will be in agony for days if your back muscles aren't used to it
If you have a garden you could set aside a small area that you just use for digging over. Digging certainly does help with back strength and legs too

No conditions simply haven't been doing any exercise that would exercise the lower back for years.
 
No conditions simply haven't been doing any exercise that would exercise the lower back for years.
Good to hear
Then pretty much any suggested will help.
All down to you really which things would appeal to you
Something you can do at home?
Something you need to go to a gym?
Something you can do outside and get fresh air at the same time?
Surprisingly perhaps but even just a good walk to start of with does help strengthen back muscles with out going too far and leaving you in agony next day
 
Deadlifts (properly)
Bridges. Lie down, plant your feet on the ground (far enough away so you can tickle your heels with your arms), press down to raise your bum off the ground, repeat
Plank
 
Avoid sit ups 100%

Daily : Front, Side left, Side right Planks.

Start off trying to hold it the form for 5-10 seconds with 30-secs rest between Planks repeat 3 times,

Increase the hold by and reps by 10% each week.

Do not compromise on the form of the plank to achieve a longer time, Once you get upto a minute their is no point in continuing your better off relaxing and adding extra rep.

I was in agony with a lower back injury 3 years ago, doing the above was advice from the back specialist @ queens med, this was for the lower back in my case. Worked a treat took about 3-4 weeks before i noticed it went away, strange how that works.
 
I thought you'd been swimming a lot? As long as you're holding your core during it, that should do wonders for your lower back.


Swimming doesn't really strengthen lower back, well not in my experience, it's good for shoulders, biceps and triceps and somewhat chest.
 
Breast stroke and particularly
butterfly stroke should do something for lower back
Other strokes not so much as you say they are more top of torso especially shoulders looking at pro swimmers

Butterfly is a tough stroke, I can't imagine lasting long doing butterfly, maybe 50m max.
 
heres my thoughts

you want an "activity" rather than stretching exercises etc ?

i have had back problems since my 30's

i now swim 3 times a week , and my back feels a LOT better for it
i used to cycle, gave that up because of it, then tried running, then found it because of that i have i had to give that up too, now I swim 3 times a week, now I feel less pain at work (manual labour, so on my feet all day) and also when i had a day off , and dont get up at 5am for work, (so we are talking 8am now) my back used to hurt all day until work next day, but the swimming has now stopped this ! :)

Just dont stop swimming, i had the flue end of December, and the fact the Pool was closed for 3 weeks due to refurbishment, meant i couldn't swim for 4 weeks, on the 4th week, my back was starting to hurt again
 
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