Back pain is something that impacts over 80 percent of people at one time or another.
When our own Corey Rose was having some back pain, we asked our fitness expert Jamie Atlas to help out with some solutions.
Here are his top three go to moves to help people get out of and stay out of back pain:
1) Stretch out the front of the hips
The muscles at the front of the body can get tight and inflexible over the many years of working/driving/eating/watching TV in a seated position. To get these muscles to lengthen, the best place to start is the opposite of the seated position.
Place one leg up on a chair or immobile surface, and keeping the back leg straight, lean into the move, feeling for a deep stretch in the front of the back hip. Gently pulse back and forth to help the muscles loosen into the stretch.
2) Twist the back muscles
Adding a rotation to this movement helps your back muscles and spinal joints remember that they are built to move, not to stagnate. If you have the left foot up, rotate to the left as far as you can before you feel tightness that you are fighting against.
3) Give the body some massage
With his clients that have back pain, Jamie likes to use a variety of tools to get into the specifically tight muscle areas. Using your own hand or getting a massage on specific areas can go a long way to getting muscles cooperative with the stretches you're trying to do.
Jamie has been a personal trainer and body worker in Denver since 2001. He has an Instagram page that shows a variety of therapy techniques and cases where he has solved long term back pain cases in 20 minutes or less. To see these or message Jamie with questions go to @jamieatlasfitness on Instagram or his website www.jamieatlas.com
