What Are The Best Back Stretches You Can Do To Start Your Day & Prevent Back Injuries
Picture the scene. First thing in the morning, getting out of bed, feeling achy and stiff and as the day goes on, things start to move and ease a little bit and the day generally gets better as the muscles are warm and joints are moving fluidly.
This is a common experience for a lot of our clients including myself, particularly if I’ve done a lot the day before or if I haven’t utilised my body in the correct way.
Achy joints, achy muscles are frustrating, and they can easily be avoided to ensure that they don’t cause any problems further on down the line.
Why are we stiffer in the mornings?
Because we lie down when sleeping, our bodies are not moving. The blood is not pumping around our body as it would be during the day. The blood stays close to the internal organs as the heart rate slows and the respiratory rate drops to allow our body to rest and recuperate.
The discs become more swollen as more fluids will go through the joints in the spine to make the intervertebral discs plumper, which then means you have more instability as you get up, as the joints are moving around, which can often cause problems in the back first thing in the morning.
The same thing happens with knee and hip pain but as the blood flows around the body, the muscles will get looser. You get more active with stretching the joints and then the joints will become more lubricated and more mobile, helping taking pressure off the area.
What can we do to speed up the process of getting the achiness out of our body and preventing injuries?
There are three main stretches that I always do first thing in the morning to get my back in the best position and get it feeling good first thing.
- Child’s pose- I’m kneeling on all fours. I can sometimes do it in bed. I try and pull my chest down to the floor. You can watch the video, the YouTube here. I think this is a really good way to get mobility through your spine. It helps to move the hips around from side to side and it’s a lovely way to start the morning. I do some deep breaths taking pressure off my spine.
2. Cat camel- I get into this from the child’s pose, arching my back. I call this a flossing exercise to help take the pressure off the intervertebral discs and starts mobilising the joints for the day. Watch here
3. Perfect stretch. This is a CrossFit exercise and it’s a great way to target the glutes, the hip flexors and getting some rotation through the spine first thing in the morning. It’s a lovely passive stretch and I find it really, effective. You can watch it here. It’s a more advanced stretch but it does target all areas of the body and helps to relieve the chest and the shoulders as well.
How do you know if pain when you’re stretching is good or bad pain?
When you’re stretching, it’s important to try and push the joint to its maximal position, allow the muscles to stretch to their max position as well.
It’s also important not to push it too far if you are struggling with an injury or some tightness, persistent tightness in certain areas. A muscle stretch really is classified as a pulling of the muscle. You can intensify that stretch as you push the joint further and you can make the muscle move further if you use breathing to help that stretch deepen and get more from it.
If you feel a sharp pain or a jabbing, then this means that you’ve gone too far, and you need to back off. Gentle stretching always should feel like a gentle muscle pull.
Don’t overstretch injured muscles and always seek advice from a professional when you are recovering from injury in terms of how much you should stretch and which areas you should stretch.
If you do know someone who is struggling with their flexibility or pain in the morning, please send them our details. You can send them this blog and they can request a free copy of our book which has posture related exercises in it as well. Click here for FREE book.
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