A Different Sort Of Tree House
Starting from scratch might mean just taking a walk in the woods. A tree stump might just be laying around begging for a second life as a mouse dollhouse. This house by Maddie Brindley can be found complete with instructions at Mads Mouse House on WordPress with more information about the craftsman.
How To Improve Flexibility And Strength
There are lots of simple stretches and exercises you can do to improve flexibility and strength in your lower back.
Focus on lengthening and extending the spine. This helps to relieve compression in the lower back. Stretching the hamstrings is also beneficial.
In addition, you should choose exercises that focus on working the hips, core, and gluteal muscles.
Doing daily activities such as walking, swimming, or yoga is recommended. Put forth dedicated effort into being active as often as possible. Consistently doing exercises and activities to loosen up your lower back will usually yield positive results within a few weeks.
Here are nine exercises you can add to your daily routine to help strengthen your lower back and improve flexibility.
This exercise increases flexibility, relieves tension, and helps to loosen the lower back and hip muscles. You can also engage your core muscles if comfortable.
Muscles used:
- erector spinae
- pelvic muscles
What Is The Fastest Way To Relieve Hip Pain
Another way to relieve hip pain is by holding ice to the area for about 15 minutes a few times a day. Try to rest the affected joint as much as possible until you feel better. You may also try heating the area. A warm bath or shower can help ready your muscle for stretching exercises that can lessen pain.
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How Do I Relieve My Tight Hamstrings
The best way to relieve tight hamstrings is to stretch them. You can do this by laying on the ground with your legs straight out. Bend your right knee and raise your foot so its touching the back of your left thigh. Use one hand to pull the heel of your left foot towards you, while using the other hand to gently push down on the right knee. Hold for 30 seconds, then switch sides.
Quick Answer: How To Loosen Tight Hips And Lower Back
2. Kneeling hip flexor stretch Kneel on your right knee. Put your left foot on the floor with your left knee at a 90-degree angle. Drive your hip forward. Maintaining a straight back, lean your torso forward. Hold the position for 30 seconds. Repeat 2 to 5 times with each leg, trying to increase your stretch each time.
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How To Work These Stretches And Exercises Into Your Routine:
The next time youre in the gym try adding these to your warm-up. You could even go a step further and begin adding them into a daily routine, multiple times a day if you can. The more frequently you address the problem, the quicker you will be to making it subside. If you have any questions, please ask Fitness Floor staff or a Personal Trainer. They can aid in applying these ideas to your workout and help you to gain the benefits of attending to the health of your hips and low back.
Rubin Dl. Epidemiology and Risk Factors for Spine Pain. Neurol Clin. 2007 May 25:353-71.
Ques : How Do You Sleep With A Tight Lower Back
Ans: Sleeping positions have a major role to play in your lower back stiffness. It can create as well as cure the pain.
The three best sleeping positions with a tight lower back are:
- Stomach sleeping
- Back sleeping with pillows placed under the knees.
- Side sleeping with pillows placed between the legs.
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Lower Back Stretches To Reduce Pain And Build Strength
Lower back pain is a fairly common health concern, as so many things can cause it.
In some cases, it might be a symptom of an underlying condition, like kidney stones or acute pancreatitis. Other times, its simply a side effect of a sedentary lifestyle or repetitive motions.
While stretching isnt a remedy for all lower back pain, in many instances, it can provide relief. If youve been living with some mild discomfort or stiffness, these seven stretches may help reduce the pain and strengthen the muscles in your lower back.
Your Brain Onthis Is Your Brain On Yoga
As a yoga instructor, I have a few favorite stretches for the hips and theyre not just my favorites because they feel good theyre extremely functional and work the hip from all angles. Frangiamore is also a fan of these yoga poses. Stretches like the pigeon pose, warrior 1 and groin stretches all work to lengthen muscles that attach around the hip joint , which become shortened after prolonged sitting or resting, he says. Lengthening these muscles can decrease tension and excessive pull on the hips and lower back which can improve posture and decrease associated pain.
Ready to get loose? Give these three stretches a try.
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Hip Flexor Tightness And Why It Is Killing Your Low Back
All of us have woken up from a long night sleep with that nagging pain through your lower back. We pull our knees to our chest.no relief. We try and rotate our lumbar spine hoping for our pain to reduce.nothing. Maybe its that pesky piriformis muscle we all keep hearing about. But none of this is alleviating the pain we are having.
What if that pain is stemming from a place very few of people associate with lower back pain? We need to look outside the box in order to track down the illusive nature of our pain. Enter the iliopsoas muscle, better known as the hip flexor. The iliopsoas runs from the front of our lumbar spine and hip bone to the front and top of our femur. This muscle being tight and bound down not only pulls our hip bone forward, but also pulls our lumbar spine into a hyperextended position increasing the joint pressure. Hence that nagging low back pain we just cant shake.
Cranking on our lower back to stretch out or performing only stability exercises such as pelvic tilts, crunches, or bridges can help out some aspects of lower back pain, but if you are not assessing your hip flexor mobility you could be missing the boat to fixing this problem. Core stabilization is a very important part of treatment and will assist with maintain decompression for the long term, but only if you are concominantly working to elongate tight and restricted soft tissues.
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Side Effects Of Heat Therapy
Like physical therapy, heating treatment with an electric pad or warm water carries relatively little risk. Because heat therapy increases circulation to the muscles, there is some risk of greater inflammation with sustained exposure to heat. For muscle tightness that involves inflammation and swelling, cold treatment may be more effective than heat therapy .
Summary
You should carefully consider the side effects of your course of treatment with your doctor. For stronger medications, pay close attention to dosage and take only as directed by your healthcare provider.
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Massage Helps Relieve Tight Hips By:
- stretching tissues that cannot be reached by foam rollers
- breaking down scar tissue
- increasing blood flow to tissues
- releasing endorphins to reduce pain
- relaxing the muscle through heat generation and circulation
Having hippain is a problem in this world and is really uncomfortable but following these steps will help get rid of hip pain or relief your hip pain. I use to have hip pain all the the time it wasnt until I learned why I was having hip pain that my hip pain went away. Now i never have hip pain and Im happy then ever before.How To Loosen Tight Hips And Lower Back
Increase Your Magnesium Intake
Magnesium induces muscle relaxation. You will find a lot of magnesium-rich fruits and vegetables.
Bananas are a great magnesium source, such as peanuts, spinach, almonds, and brown rice. Alternatively, you should take magnesium supplements to increase your magnesium intake, helping relax tight muscles.
Before taking any supplement, make sure to speak to your doctor.
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Tight Hips May Also Be Caused By:
- standing after long periods of sitting
- A tipped pelvis, which creates a structural imbalance
- Postural habits like leaning over into one hip or leaning forward into both hips when standing
- sleeping all night on the same side of the body
- having one leg longer than the other
- Tight hips may also flare up when you perform lower body exercises, like squats and deadlifts.
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How To Strengthen Your Hip Flexors:
The easiest place to start is with active warm-up drills that are often underrated and underutilised, says Holland. Two to three minutes of high knees, bum kicks, skipping and running backwards will open up the hips in the front, side and back planes of motion, he explains. Holland also suggests doing strength work in different planes of motion to keep all the muscles in and around your hip flexors especially your glutes firing correctly.
You cant have good hip flexion if your glutes are tight or weak, says Nurse, so its very important that youre always stretching and strengthening the front of your hip flexor and the back, which are the glute muscles. Unilateral exercises such as step-ups and single-leg toe touches are particularly effective at strengthening the glutes, while walking lunges, lateral lunges, air squats and jump squats will zero in on all the muscles surrounding the hips.
Whether you are at the gym or heading out for a run, these five moves will strengthen and open your hips, keep them loose in the long term and not only make you a better runner, but also make running feel better to you.
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What Do Your Hamstrings Do
This muscle-tendon tag team provides the movement for everyday activities such as walking, running, jumping, and climbing stairs. They enable:
- Knee flexion your hamstring muscles are the reason youre able to bend your knees. In addition, they allow the inward and outward movement of your lower legs, and help refine your speed and walking position.
- Hip extension your hamstrings assist in the straightening of your hips, and the backward movement of your thighs when you walk. They also serve to power you forward through running.
So sure, your glutes might steal most of the powerhouse glory. But without the aid of healthy hamstrings, youd find yourself in a spot of trouble. Squatting down, moving from seated to standing, and even staying upright, all rely on your hamstrings.
So its important to remember that in the same way that your joints sometimes need a little extra consideration, your soft tissues can need a spot of TLC too.
Which neatly leads us onto your next question.
Image credit: Alora Griffiths
Where Are Your Hamstrings
Are you sitting comfortably? Fantastic! Please let us interrupt that for just a moment, and ask you to shuffle to the edge of your seat. Ready? Now rest your hand on the back of your thigh, and press your heel to the floor, as you would to stand up. Can you feel your thigh tense beneath your hand? Those are your hamstring muscles hard at work.
Foam Roller Exercises for Your Lower Back and Hips
Alternatively, you can also feel your hamstrings while standing up. Again, place your hand on the back of your thigh. As soon as you start to walk, youll feel those same muscles hard at work through each step. Depending on where exactly you are, you might also attract a few confused looks. So we recommend maybe trying this one indoors.
So thats your muscle group nicely located, and a few odd glances probably gained. But in order to learn how to loosen tight hamstrings and how to loosen tight hamstrings effectively its also important to first understand the role they play.
So its onto your next two questions what are your hamstrings, and what exactly do they do?
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Why Hip Mobility Matters
When I began my career as a physical therapist, 20 plus years ago, I treated a steady stream of patients suffering from a wide range of issues from low back aches to knee pain, to being unable to sit down and tie their shoes. Quite a lot of them had one thing in commonthey werent able to move their hips well.
Improving their hip mobility led to decreasing the strain on their low backs and knees, making their walking, stair climbing, and running gait more efficient, and creating more ease in their daily activities such as getting in/out of car, on/off the floor, and even being able to tolerate long drives in their cars.
Since youre here, I dont have to guess that youre bothered by your tight hips for one reason or another. Tight hips have probably gotten in the way of your daily activities or exercise goals countless times.
And thats really why hip mobility is so importantbecause when its missing, your options become a lot more limited.
The hips are connected to every part of the body, and when theyre not moving well, theres a chain reaction of restriction. You cant squat easily, your hamstrings start to feel tight, maybe you compensate with certain movements when you walk which causes your back to start tightening upand so on and so forth.
Our goal at GMB is to help you feel free in your bodyfree to do the things that are important to you, and free from pain and restrictions.
And thats just not possible if tight hips are getting in your way.
What Can Cause A Tight Lower Back
Sports injuries, overtraining, and accidents can cause your back to feel tight. Even everyday activities such as sitting can cause tightness.
Often you develop tightness in the lower back to compensate for an issue in another part of the body. Tight hamstrings and gluteus muscles can also contribute to this tightness. Having poor posture or using incorrect form while lifting weights or having weak core muscles can also play a part.
There are several other factors that can lead to or complicate a tight lower back. These include:
- sprains and strains
Youll typically see improvements within two to six weeks of doing daily exercises. You should see a doctor if:
- your pain doesnt improve within a few weeks
- you have intense pain while doing the exercises
- the pain spreads to your legs
Also see a doctor if you experience any numbness, swelling, or severe pain. Your doctor can help to determine if any pain or tightness is being caused by an underlying condition.
There are many lifestyle changes you can practice to help prevent lower back pain. Here are a few guidelines and tips:
- Adopt a balanced, healthy diet.
- Maintain a healthy weight.
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What Causes Muscle Stiffness
You have likely experienced muscle stiffness at one point in your life or other and probably blamed it on some outside factors. But what do experts say about this concept and its causes? According to Medical News Today, muscle stiffness occurs when muscles are tight and difficult to move .
This type of muscle tightness may affect only a few muscles or your entire body. When this results in pain throughout your body, you experience systemic muscle pain . Muscle tightness is accompanied by discomfort, cramping or pain .
You need to understand the cause of muscle tightness to distinguish the best strategy for addressing it. One common cause of muscle stiffness is from exercise. Your muscles may become stiff after starting a new exercise routine or increasing its intensity and duration .
That said, muscle tightness is also caused by sprains, repetitive strain injuries, Lyme diseases, Lupus, muscle cramp, and Rheumatoid arthritis . Below we will focus on alleviating muscle stiffness using exercise. We will discuss how you can loosen up tight muscles in various body parts by stretching.
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Why Wont My Hamstrings Loosen Up
The reason your hamstrings feel tight is quite likely because they are in fact overstretched. Because we sit down much more than the human body likes to, we end up with tightness in the front of the thigh and in the lower back. Your hamstrings and backside muscles end up in a lengthened position while you sit.
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Back Pain 7 Stretches You Can Do From Your Desk Chair
WITH HEATHER HARRISON, PT, DPT, OCS
Back pain, especially lower back pain, is extremely common, brought on by movement, activity or even the opposite. Staying in a seated position throughout the day in a less-than-optimal desk chair or car seat can bring on the pain.
Physical Therapist Heather Harrison of OrthoCarolina Huntersville has seen her fair share of patients with back pain and she often recommends using a chair with lumbar support. But even if your chair has built-in support, Heather says one size doesnt fit all.
For a little extra support, try rolling up a jacket, sweatshirt or towel to place behind your back. When youre in a bind, Heather says this simple step can help support the natural curvature of the lumbar spine.
Still feeling that lower back pain? You can do these exercises right from your desk chair:
ABDOMINAL BRACING 10 x 10 seconds
Begin in a seated position with hands on your lower abs. With a slow, controlled movement, draw your navel to your spine, bracing your abdominal muscles. Hold, then relax.
Be sure to keep your tall posture throughout the exercise, avoiding bending forward or holding your breath.
SEATED MARCHES WITH ABDOMINAL BRACING 30 repetitions
Throughout the exercise, remain seated in your chair with a straight back and abs braced by pulling the navel to the spine.
Your knees stay bent as you pick one leg up off the ground, lower it back down and alternate with the other leg.
SEATED FORWARD FLEXION STRETCH3 x 30 seconds
3 x 30 seconds
