One of the very best back pain relief exercises involves one the most commonly underdeveloped muscle groups.
Which muscle group would that be?
Your GLUTES!
That’s right…those huge lumps of muscle that most of us sit on all day long. You know, I was thinking, maybe thats why there is SO MUCH back pain out there…
Our butt muscles are starting a civil war with our backs because we sit on them all day!
lol…maybe not! 🙂
Anyway, squeezing your butt muscles together may very well be the best back pain relief exercise available. This helps alleviate back pain mostly because the majority of the population has an excessive anterior pelvic tilt. If you remember correctly from my previous posts, this postural imbalance involves the pelvis tipping too far forward, and involves too much tension in the psoas and quadricep muscles. Alternately, the abs, hamstrings, and glutes are thereby “weakened”.
So, if your back is bothering you when standing, put a little squeeze in your glutes (don’t worry, no one will notice unless they are staring at your ass!), and that may bring you some relief!
By the way, you don’t need to squeez the life out of them to get relief, just about a 25% squeeze will do the trick!
–Sam Visnic