Lower back pain can be totally debilitating, making it hard to exercise, move around or even do simple activities like chores.

So, here, we’re sharing these 3 easy tips to help you say goodbye to lower back pain once and for all. Let’s get started. 

1. Strengthen Your Abs, but Stretch Your Hamstrings

There’s lots of advice to help you eliminate lower back pain telling you to exercise more, do strength training, and stretch it out.

Yes, all of these tips can help with lower back pain but they’re too generalized. What kind of exercises should you be doing? What parts of the body need to be strengthened? Which parts need to be stretched?

So, we’re getting into the nitty-gritty to let you know that to reduce lower back pain, you should:

• Strengthen your abs and core
• Stretch your hips and hamstrings

By strengthening your abdominals, you’re taking pressure off of your lower back. You can think of your body as a series of counteractions where the front of your body supports the back and vice versa. So, strengthening your abs is a great place to start for relieving low back pain.

Your lower back pain is also likely caused by tight hips and hamstrings. Since your hips connect to your lower back and your hamstrings attach to your hips, it makes sense that stretching the muscles that are the most closely connected to your back pain would offer some relief.

Try workouts like kickboxing that can effectively target your core muscles or yoga that strengthens your abdominals while lengthening your hips and hamstrings. 

2. Maintain Healthy Habits

By maintaining healthy habits, you can also do a lot to eliminate lower back pain. After all, lower back pain is often a symptom of more than just a muscular imbalance. It could be a sign that there are other aspects of your life that aren’t working for you as much as they could be.

A few healthy habits to try when you want to say goodbye to lower back pain include:

• Quit smoking
• Achieve a healthy weight
• Improve your sleep

If you’re a smoker, this bad habit could be contributing to your lower back pain. Research shows that smokers are four times more likely to have spinal issues or degenerative disc disease than non-smokers. Plus, nicotine can weaken spinal bones. So, if you quit smoking, you may find some relief in your lower back pain. 

Additionally, if you’re overweight, this could be contributing to your lower back pain as well. Carrying any excess weight in your lower back can easily cause undue pain. So by adopting a healthier exercise routine and diet to lose weight, your lower back pain may also improve. 

Your sleep patterns may also contribute to lower back pain. Not only is quality sleep absolutely essential to overall health but your sleeping position may also be the cause of your lower back pain. For example, lying on your side with a pillow between your legs while you sleep can significantly improve any signs of lower back pain.

3. Try Hot or Cold Therapy

If your lower back pain is caused by an injury or some sort of strain, it might be helpful to try hot or cold therapy to relieve the pain.

Hot therapy uses warmer temperatures to offer pain relief and includes hot baths, showers, jacuzzis, and heating pads. Hot therapy is amazing for relaxation and allowing your muscles to slowly release tension.

Cold therapy uses cold temperatures to reduce inflammation and aid in the healing process. Cold therapy includes things like cryotherapy chambers, ice packs, and ice baths. 

Both hot therapy and cold therapy should be used intermittently, usually only for 20 minutes at a time (or less). You should never sleep on a heating pad or ice pack and if your lower back pain continues, it could be a sign of a deeper problem. 

Again, hot and cold therapy will be beneficial if your lower back muscles are the culprit of your lower back pain. But, if your lower back pain has another source, these therapies will be less effective. 

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Don’t let lower back pain hold you back. Try these easy tips to say goodbye to lower back pain for good!