I hope that you took full advantage of last week’s long holiday weekend.
My weekend was full of food, family, football, and plenty of time to relax.
In today’s constant, go-go-go society, we all can benefit from a little more time to relax and may help improve your outcomes in physical therapy. But for those of us who are used to moving constantly, this can result in back discomfort.
Research shows that decreased daily movement increases the risk of lower back pain.
Our spines are designed to move, and the structures in our lower backs (most notably, our discs) do not receive optimal nutrition and blood flow when we are sedentary.
The risk for lower back pain further increases if you have a history of lower back pain.
If the holidays are causing you to be less physically active than normal or you have a history of lower back pain, the activities below can make a huge difference!
The goals of these activities are to get the back moving and get the stabilizing mechanisms of the spine going!
Start by performing these activities a couple of times per day as a “movement break”.
- Spinal Segmentation: 3 spinal waves in each direction
- 90/90 Hip Lift: 3 sets of 5 breathing cycles (each breathing cycle is in through the nose, followed by a full exhale, followed by a 5-second pause)
- Physioball rollouts: 2-3 sets of 5 (try performing this with a breath at the top of each rep!)
P.S. If you are looking to solve your chronic back pain once and for all, contact us to set up an evaluation for back pain physical therapy in our McLean or new Bethesda location!
