These Yoga Exercises Will Really Reduce Back Pain
If your back hurts, yoga may be the last thing you want to do. But after 12 weeks of a gentle beginner yoga program, people in a recent study received the same pain relief as those who received physical therapy sessions. And both types of exercise worked better than doing nothing at all.
If you’d like to try the tricks on your own, here is the guide they gave out to the participants. Poses start out very simple and don’t require much flexibility or strength. In many cases, you are leaning against a wall or doing a simplistic childish version of what the lululemon models do. The participants were also not experienced yogis: they were 320 people with back pain who lived in the Boston area, were racial and mostly low-income. They had no back injuries, just a pulling pain that the doctors couldn’t explain, possibly related to a lack of strength and flexibility .
They took an hour-long yoga class every week and were instructed to practice 30 minutes on their own every day when they weren’t having a class. The guide explains how to study at home, but if you want more information, check out the teacher’s guide. Before the yoga program, 70 percent of the participants took pain relievers. Then there were only 50 percent. (People who haven’t had yoga or physical therapy programs haven’t changed their pain relievers.) This yoga program doesn’t work miracles, but it seems to help.
I tried the routine (I went straight to the more complex movements since I used to do yoga) and they are simple, gentle, and not at all intimidating. If you have back pain, check it out, but it’s good to know that yoga can help.