Yoga for Back Pain

I have a good friend who is an Acupunturist as well as a Yoga Instructor.  She does amazing work.  Her name is Heather Johnstone.  We were discussing lower back pain and how many people suffer from it.  Obviously, there are many causes for lower back pain and there is definitely no "one size fits all" solution or approach to lower back pain.

There are times, however, when lower back pain is simply due to tightness in the muscles of the lower back.  We often refer to them as paraspinal muscles.  These muscles are rather deep in the back and run along the spine.  They can become aggravated by many things from sitting with poor posture to lifting improperly to exercising with bad form.

Lumbar Paraspinal muscles are depicted on right,  They are bascially a long column of muscle that runs from the buttocks to the head.

When these muscles become aggravated or tight, there is a rather simple yoga pose that can provide some relief and help to stretch these muscles out again.  It is called Child's Pose.  For those familiar with yoga this comes as no surprise and is done quite often in yoga practice.  For those unfamiliar, this pose is demonstrated in the image below.

You can modify this pose slightly to focus on one side of the back or the other.  For example, if the right side is tight, you can "walk" your right hand over toward the left which puts more stretch emphasis on the right side versus the left.  If your knees hurt and will not allow you to sit back on your heels you can place a pillow between your buttocks and heels or simply not "sit back" that far into the pose.

You can hold the pose for as little or long as you like.  My only bit of advice, however, is that a little can go a long way at times.  Start with short stretches of a few seconds and work up from there.  Of course if the pose causes an increase in pain at all, this may not be appropriate for you.  "No pain, no gain" doesn't work here.