Searching for relief from a sore lower back usually turns up long lists of lower back stretches. The ones on this page are gentle, the kind you can move through without the pain climbing, and none of them is a treatment on its own. Keeping up your ordinary day, rather than lying still, is what the Australian guidance on low back pain advises.
Before you start: how gentle is gentle
Gentle means a stretch you could hold while talking. You should feel a steady pull or a mild ache in the muscle, never a sharp or catching pain.
- Stay in your comfortable range. Go to the first point where you feel the pull and wait there.
- No bouncing. Ease in, hold still, ease out.
- Breathe slowly. Every hold here is a few slow breaths, not a count.
- Use the floor. A mat or carpet is firmer to settle onto than a soft mattress.
If you have had surgery on your back or hip, follow your surgeon’s restrictions before trying any of these; if you have osteoporosis or are pregnant, check with your GP first.
Stop and get it checked if a stretch sends pain spreading into your buttock or down a leg, brings on pins and needles or numbness, leaves a leg or foot feeling weak, or makes the pain climb rather than ease, during or afterwards. If what you notice matches one of the signs at the end of this page, follow that advice instead.
Gentle stretches for the lower back and hips
Six movements. You do not need all of them: try each on its own, keep the ones that feel comfortable, and leave out any that do not agree with your back today.
- Knee rolls. Lie on your back, knees bent and feet flat. Let both knees tip slowly to one side, only as far as your shoulders stay down, and rest there for a few slow breaths. Come back through the middle and over to the other side. Aimed at easy rotation through the lower back. Stop if one side sharpens or pain runs into a leg.
- Knee to chest. On your back, hold behind one thigh, not over the kneecap, and draw that knee gently towards your chest with the other foot on the floor. A few slow breaths, then swap. Aimed at the muscles low in the back and behind the hip. Stop if it pinches at the front of the hip or sets off leg pain.
- Glute stretch. On your back with both knees bent, cross one ankle over the opposite knee. If that is not enough, hold behind the supporting thigh and draw it slowly towards you. A few slow breaths, then change sides. Aimed at the buttock and the back of the hip. Stop if it brings on pain down the leg, or pins and needles.
- Cat and camel. On hands and knees, slowly round your back up towards the ceiling and let your head drop, then let your back sag gently as you lift your gaze. One slow breath each way, a few times over, in the part of the range that stays comfortable. Aimed at moving the spine a little at a time. Stop if either end brings a sharp catch.
- Child’s pose. Kneel with your big toes together and knees apart, sit back towards your heels and walk your hands forward until your forehead rests on the floor or a cushion. A few slow breaths. Aimed at a gentle rounding of the lower back. Stop if bending forward makes the pain sharper or sends it down a leg.
- Hip flexor stretch. Kneel on one knee on a cushion, other foot flat in front. Squeeze the buttock on the kneeling side to tuck your tailbone under, then shift forward only until you feel a pull across the front of that hip, without arching your lower back. A few slow breaths, then swap. Aimed at the front of the hip, which a desk day keeps folded. Stop if your back pinches or the knee hurts.
If your back is worst at the end of a desk day, the desk itself is covered in why your lower back hurts after sitting all day.
If your back has gone into spasm
A lower back spasm can arrive without warning, sometimes as you bend for something light, and leave you stuck leaning forward or tilted to one side. The muscles around the sore spot tighten and hold, as if guarding it. The instinct is to lie down and keep still.
Rest when you need to, in whatever position is most comfortable for you, for example on your back with your calves up on a chair or pillows, or on your side with a pillow between your knees. Then get up and move in small amounts, a slow lap of the house or the office and another when you can. Knee rolls in a small range may be comfortable. Stop and get it checked if moving sends pain into a leg or the pain keeps climbing. The deeper stretches can wait until bending feels ordinary again.
That is the direction the Australian guidance takes. Quality statement 5 of the Low Back Pain Clinical Care Standard from the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care (2022) says a patient with low back pain is encouraged to stay active and continue, or return to, usual activity, including work, as soon as possible or feasible. For an acute episode, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners’ HANDI entry Advice to stay active for people with acute low back pain (2019) recommends staying active over resting in bed, meaning keeping up your normal daily activities as far as you can, work included.
If the pain has started travelling down the back of a leg, read about sciatica and leg pain too, and check the signs at the end of this page.
Exercises once it has settled
When bending, sitting and getting out of a chair feel ordinary again, you can ask a little more of your back. Most lists of lower back pain exercises start with some version of these three, aimed at strength and control around the trunk and hips.
- Bridges. On your back, knees bent and feet flat, press through your heels and lift your hips until you make a straight line from shoulders to knees, without arching. Hold for a slow breath, then lower one part of the spine at a time. Aimed at the glutes and the back of the thigh.
- Gentle trunk work. On hands and knees, slide one arm forward and back, then one leg behind you, keeping your back still and level. When that feels steady, reach the opposite arm and leg together. Aimed at holding the trunk still while the limbs move, the job it does when you lift and carry.
- Walking. The plainest of the three. Start on flat ground at a pace that lets you talk, and go a little further while it stays comfortable.
Build up gradually: a couple more repetitions or a little more distance, only when the current amount leaves you no sorer afterwards. If it does, drop back to the last amount that did not. The stop rules are the same as for the stretches: leg pain, pins and needles, numbness, weakness or pain that climbs means stop and get it checked.
Bringing lifting back, at home or in the gym, is covered in our guide to lifting at work, at home and at the gym. If your back keeps flaring after long desk days, looking at how you move and load through the week is what mobility and wellness care is built around.
When to get it looked at
Go to a hospital emergency department straight away if you have numbness or altered feeling around the saddle area, meaning the groin, the inner thighs, the buttocks or the genitals; a loss of normal sensation in the genitals, including during sex; trouble starting to pass urine, or any new change in your bladder or bowel control; weakness in both legs, particularly if it is getting worse; new or worsening pain running down both legs; weakness in one leg that is severe or getting worse, or a foot that has started to catch or drag when you walk; or numbness in a leg that is spreading or getting worse quickly.
Go to a hospital emergency department straight away for back or neck pain after a serious fall or a high-impact accident, such as a car accident; back or neck pain with a fever or feeling generally unwell; or new back or neck pain if your immune system is weakened, for instance by long-term steroids or chemotherapy, if you inject drugs, or if you have recently had a spinal injection, spinal surgery or a dental procedure.
The back signs above go to an emergency department because the Australian guidance on low back pain puts them there: the Low Back Pain Clinical Care Standard, published by the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care in 2022, and the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners’ 2022 guidance for GPs on imaging in adults with acute low back pain both send suspected cauda equina syndrome, suspected spinal infection, a fracture after a high-impact injury and severe or rapidly worsening nerve weakness for emergency assessment.
Both are published: the Commission’s Low Back Pain Clinical Care Standard and the college’s guidance for GPs on imaging in adults with acute low back pain.
See your GP promptly, before booking here, if you have a history of cancer, unexplained weight loss, pain at night that will not settle in any position, known osteoporosis with new severe pain, numbness that is spreading or getting worse slowly, or new, unexplained back pain as an older adult.
Otherwise, an assessment is worth booking if your back keeps going into spasm, if movements that used to feel fine now set it off, if pain or pins and needles have started running into a buttock or leg, or if you have begun planning your week around your back. We look at how you move, explain what we find.