Low Back Stretch. Gentle. Effective.
This low back stretch is included in the 90 ☀️ Days 5 🖐🏼 SIMPLE Exercises series.
A series you can start or re-start at ANY time. Click the gold box for links to each week.
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⏰ Time Stamp for this video:
🔸 00:00 Intro☝🏼 Simple Exercise Whole Body Results. Ex #2 for this week’s routine.
🔸 01:41 Our Goal and 1 Common Hurdle.
🔸 03:13 This 1 Simple Exercise will do the following
🔸 04:05 The Psoas Muscle
🔸 06:30 Exercise Positioning
The Simple Self Care Lifestyle Tip:
🎯 Use this Low Back Stretch in your Daily Routine.
A Simple Low Back Stretch
This one simple low back stretch, when used to its fullest potential, is nothing short of amazing.
The specific exercise positioning: supports our body while we use our deep, deep, breathing that we have been mastering in Retraining our HPA Axis for better, sleep, mood, ..) .
Stretching from the inside out
You can think of today’s exercise as literally- gently – stretching from the inside ➡ out.
The combination of positioning and use of breath allows us to expand our abdominal cavity stretching its supporting muscles.
The abdominal cavity is the area between our back muscles and abdominal muscles. And our diaphragm and pelvic floor.
How does this work?
As we inhale deeper and deeper we slowly increase the internal space that the air takes up.
This begins to help us gently stretch taunt muscles from the inside out:
- little back muscles that are next to the spine,
- our quadratus lumborum on the lumbar spine
- this position and deep breathing also helps tone our vagus nerve which
- helps reduce our stress hormones…..
I wasn’t over exaggerating when I said this low back stretch is nothing short of amazing!
I hope this quick, over simplistic description of what is going on helps you imagine how this gentle stretching of your low back region will help your over-all well-being.
This is really an amazing exercise
The last pitch for today in my effort to convince you that this simple low back stretch is worth your time is that it also helps us do another important thing.
It helps to balance the psoas which helps us to improve:
- neck humps
- upper, lower back issues
- belly pooches
- along with a multitude of other benefits
What’s a psoas muscle? Why is it important?
Like the diaphragm in E for E: Incontinence, ED, Back Pain the psoas muscle is another hidden gem.
The Psoas
The psoas muscle connects to your lower vertebrae (spinal bones of your lower back) and goes through your abdominal cavity attaching to your thigh bone.
Every single time you bring your thigh a bit up and forward you are using your psoas muscle.
For instance when you are:
- walking
- squatting
- going uphill
- climbing stairs
- balancing on one leg….
The Psoas is
- the only muscle to cross both the lower spine and hip joint so it impacts hip joint rotation.
- your deepest muscle of your core
- the only muscles that connect your spine to your legs.
If we are active (which is our goal) and using one side of our body more than the other, which is typical, one of the two psoas muscles may become a bit shorter in length.
Your best defense in preserving friction free mobility, as an athlete or as we age, is an offensive strategy that includes releasing the lower back region in a gentle way that includes the psoas muscle daily.
Releasing the low back region daily is a very good idea.
How to do the Gentle, Effective, Low Back Stretch
Position
- On your back, feet slightly wider than hip width.
- Allow your knees to meet in the middle, gently supported by the weight of each other.
- Your head is relaxed and parallel to the floor if you need a small towel or pillow for comfort just be sure it is not lifting your head up.
Action
- In this position we will use 4 rounds of the 4-7-8 breathing.
- With each slow 8 count exhale melt deeper into the relaxed state.
One Minute Version:
That’s it. So ridiculously simple sooooo beneficial.
You can gently use todays low back ‘internal’ stretch to:
- release your lower back
- help balance your psoas muscles
- improve your overall posture and
- well-being
⚠️ Because it is ridiculously SIMPLE the largest hurdle is getting past the preconceived notion that it couldn’t possibly be effective. It is.