Yoga for Back Pain — The Perfect Rx for Easing Your Aching Back!

Caution: You should not perform these yoga for back pain exercises if you are experiencing severe or acute pain. Please check with your doctor before beginning yoga or any exercise program, especially if your back pain is accompanied by other symptoms like numbness or pain and tingling or weakness in your legs.

Low back pain is a significant health problem in the US. According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH):

• Seventy to 85 percent of all people have back pain at some time in their life.
• Back pain is the most frequent cause of activity limitation in people younger than 45 years old.

I am living proof that yoga can help improve back pain. I began doing yoga over ten years ago as a way to help control my chronic low back pain and sciatica. It worked. As I continued to practice yoga for back pain, the pain gradually went away and I am now virtually pain free, thanks to yoga.

Studies are beginning to confirm what I personally experienced; yoga for back pain works. In an article published in the December 20, 2005 Annals of Internal Medicine researchers compared the effectiveness of yoga, traditional exercise (combining aerobic, strengthening, and stretching exercises), and a self-care plan for the treatment of chronic low back pain. Results showed that after 12 weeks, yoga was significantly more effective than traditional exercise or a self-care approach in improving back function.

After six months, patients in the yoga group reported less pain and were less likely to use pain medications than their counterparts. At the final 26-week follow-up, only 21% of yoga participants reported taking pain medication in the past week, compared with half of the patients in the exercise group and 59% of those who received the self-care book. "Yoga may be beneficial for back pain because it involves physical movement, but it may also exert benefits through its effects on mental focus," they wrote.

Viniyoga Used in Yoga for Back Pain Study

Patients in the study learned Viniyoga, a therapeutic style of yoga that is easy to learn and can be adapted for various body types and fitness levels.

"This study suggests that Viniyoga is a safe and effective treatment for chronic back pain and provides physicians with a rationale for recommending it (and possibly other therapeutically oriented styles of yoga as well) to their patients."

The study was funded by a grant from the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.

How a Good Teacher Can Help with Yoga for Back Pain

Once your doctor gives you the okay, find a good yoga teacher and tell her about your back pain and any other medical concerns. Find out if she is certified and what kind of yoga she teaches.

A background in Viniyoga, Iyengar, or Anusara yoga should insure that an experienced teacher will be able to respond to your physical limitations with the use of props and modifications, helping to create a gentle, safe, beneficial experience.

Unless you are a professional rehabilitation specialist yourself, it is important to find a qualified teacher. Do not try to teach yourself!

Why Yoga for Back Pain Helps

The position and curve of your spine is determined by the amount of balance in numerous muscle groups like the thighs, hips and torso. When muscle imbalances pull your spine and body out of alignment, the level of stress on certain muscles, bones and joints increases. And even the smallest muscle imbalance can over time pull you out of balance and place tremendous amounts of uneven pressure and wear and tear on your body... especially the vertebrae, discs, spine and its supporting muscles.

One of the essential principles of back care is to create balance by developing strong yet flexible muscles, something yoga for back pain is designed to do. Most people, especially those of us living sedentary lives, have certain muscles in our body that tend to be tight and others that are weak, creating imbalances and pulling our spine and joints out of alignment. So, the focus will be to stretch and increase flexibility in some areas, while strengthening others.

For example, tight hamstring muscles (in the back of the thighs) and hip flexors (in the front of the thighs) can contribute to low-back pain so poses that stretch these muscles are important for overall back care.

Many of the postures in yoga for back pain gently strengthen and stretch the back muscles, which will help to lengthen the spine and create more space for the discs between your vertebrae. When these muscles are well conditioned, posture is often improved and back pain can be greatly reduced or avoided.

Yoga can also increase flexibility in your shoulders and hips, which decreases demands on your back.

In addition, yoga for back pain helps to increase blood flow, allowing nutrients to flow in, toxins to flow out, and overall nourishment of the muscles and soft tissues in the lower back. This is especially nourishing to the spongy discs between the vertebrae and spinal muscles.

Yoga's focus on breathing and connecting breath with movement improves body awareness, making you more conscious of movements that may contribute to back pain.

Yoga for Back Pain Postures

The following basic yoga poses are designed to gently help with back pain. Give them a try. Always remember to listen to your body and if something hurts, don't do it. Move slowly and gently. Being too aggressive can make matters worse.

Reclining Knee to Chest Pose

This pose gently relieves stress and discomfort in the low back.

Steps:

1. Lie on your back with your head resting on floor and your knees bent and feet on the floor hip-width apart.
2. Draw your right knee toward your chest, holding on to your shin or the back or your thigh. Hold for several seconds.
3. Return to starting position with feet on the floor and then and repeat on the left side.

Pelvic Tilts

Pelvic tilts help to stretch the muscles of the low back, strengthen the abdominals and massage the spine and sacrum.

Steps:

1. Lie on your back with your hands at your sides with palms down.
2. Bend your knees and place your feet hip width apart on the floor, pointing your toes straight ahead.
3. Exhale and pull your navel towards your spine, contacting your abdominal muscles, and pushing your low back into the floor for a few seconds.
4. Inhale and relax your abdominal muscles releasing your back from the floor.
5. Repeat 5 to 7 times.

Flowing Bridge

This pose helps to strengthen and stretch your back, hips, thighs and shoulders.

Steps:

1. Lie on your back with your knees bent and feet on the floor hip width apart.
2. Place your arms at your sides palms facing down.
3. Inhale as you curl your tailbone under and lift your hips up toward the ceiling, only going as high as feels comfortable.
4. Exhale as you roll back down, one vertebra at a time, returning your hips to the floor.
5. You can keep your hands at your sides, or as you raise your hips, lift your arms overhead, and as you lower your hips, lower your arms.
6. Repeat 4-6 times.

Reclining Hamstring Stretch

As its name implies, this exercise is designed to give your hamstrings a nice stretch.

Steps:

1. Lie on your back with your knees bent and feet on the floor hip width apart.
2. Draw your right knee in toward your chest and hold the back of your thigh just below the knee with both hands.
3. Extend your right leg up toward the ceiling going only as far as feels comfortable. Release and hug your knee in again.
4. Repeat the extension 2-3 times and then hold the leg up for several seconds feeling a nice stretch all along the back of your leg.
5. Return to starting position with knees bent and both feet on the floor.
6. Repeat the sequence on your left side.

Child's Pose

Child's Pose relaxes your back and neck, stretches your spine and provides a gentle squeeze to the abdominals. It is a good compensation or counter pose to back bends.

Steps:

1. Come to hands and knees with your hands beneath your shoulders and knees beneath your hips.
2. Sit back on your heels folding forward from the hips trying to rest your torso on your thighs and your forehead to the floor. Only go as far as feels comfortable.
3. Place your arms on the floor next to your legs, palms up, or extend your arms on the floor in front of you with palms down (extended child's pose).
4. Let your shoulders relax.
5. If you are in extended child's pose, stretch your fingers out in front of you as far as you can and breathe into your upper back, allowing your back to open and stretch on inhale and relax on exhale.
6. Remain in this position for 6-10 breaths.