Everyone’s probably felt it at some point in their lives, the sudden pang of pain that shoots up from the lower back and leaves us temporarily grabbing for a wall or a chair to rest on as we try to keep balance.
As a lot of people may already know, lower back pain originates from the set of lower back muscles that can either be strained, tired, overworked, under worked or all four at the same time. Exercise is pretty much recommended to avoid any type of muscular degradation but, in the case of the lower back, there are some types of exercise that sufferers should avoid.
Sit Ups
Here’s a pretty big culprit that some people don’t understand is doing more harm than good to their lower lumbar area. One may think that sit-ups strengthen the abdominal muscles but what they don’t understand is that most people tend to use the back muscles when doing sit-ups regularly. Another reason to avoid this kind of exercise is because they put unnecessary strain on the discs of the lower spine and contribute more to back pain.
Leg Lifts
Leg-lifts suffer from the same misunderstanding that sit-ups do. People think it’ll help with their abdominal and lower back muscles but unless you’ve already trained those muscle groups, doing Leg-lifts will just strain your back further. It’s much preferable to do individual leg-lifts as they don’t put that much pressure on your back and are more tolerable if you’re already suffering from lower back pain.
Toe Touches
Like the exercises mentioned above, toe-touches are pretty good at working the back muscles and would normally strengthen them but in the case of those already suffering from chronic or even just mild back pain, this will only aggravate the pain.
Anything with Excessive Rotation
And lastly, exercises that involve large amounts of rotating your torso can cause back pain to increase. It’s not to say that rotating itself is bad, it’s just that any exercise regimens that involve large amounts of it can really be detrimental to good back health.