We’re living though something of a back pain epidemic. According to the Office for National Statistics, back and neck pain are now responsible for nearly a million Brits being off work, with the National Institute for Care and Excellence (NICE) suggesting that 60% of adults will live with chronic lower back pain at some point in their lives. That’s huge.

’Back pain’ doesn’t sound serious but it can make everyday tasks infinitely more difficult. From picking up children to showering, we use our back muscles all the time. You’ve got to be able to twist to reverse a car, bend effectively to take something out of a low-down drawer and have good shoulder mobility to get something off the top shelf. Heck, even sitting at your desk pain-free requires good back health. So why are so many of us living with back pain and what can we do to ease it?

Physiotherapist Nell Mead tells Strong Women that one key issue tends to be muscle weakness around the pelvis and lower back. The weaker those muscles, the less control you have over those areas. “That weakness might be caused by old injury pain, or a lack of exercise and movement – sitting still for long periods is a key cause of lower back pain. Either way it leads to further dysfunction and the risk of more pain,” she explains.

Mercifully, there are a number of stretches and exercises you can do to either relieve lower back or prevent it in the future. 

Mead recommends a process called ‘release, stabilise and move’. “Releasing will help the big tight muscles to relax, stabilising will activate the deeper stability muscles and moving allows you to use both sets of muscles in harmony by performing movements,” Mead explains.

Release

These three stretches are designed to release the big back muscles:

Tennis ball release

• Lie on the floor
• Place a tennis ball underneath your back in the area that feels most tense
• Slowly lean into the ball (avoiding the spine), rolling it into surrounding areas
• If you don’t have a tennis ball, try using a massage gun instead

Apanasana pose

• Lying on your back, bring your knees up to your chest
• Place your hands on your knees and then gently rock from side-to-side – massaging the back into the ground

Child’s pose

• Start on all fours with your knees apart and feet together
• Slowly drop your bottom back onto your heels and drop your head down onto the floor (or onto your hands if you can’t reach the floor)
• Breathe deeply and feel the stretch along the back, neck and shoulders

Stabilise

These are your pilates-inspired moves that require moving specific muscles. Go slow and really concentrate on the mind-muscle connection:

Kegels

• Activate your pelvic floor and lower abdominal muscles by imagining squeezing your vaginal walls together very slowly
• Just as slowly, release
• Repeat 30 times.

Pelvic tilts

• Go back into that glute bridge position
• This time, imagine you’ve got a skewer running though your hips from left to right
• Slowly tilt your pelvis towards your toes and then back towards your face, as if rotating that skewer
• Your lower back should arch and flatten against the mat but make sure you are initiating the movement from your pelvis

Move

These compound exercises are all about using the core, as well as the glutes and hamstrings to get that lower back working:

Superman

• Start on your hands and knees with your hands directly under your shoulders and knees directly under hips
• Pull your belly button into towards your spine and engage the pelvic floor
• Now slowly raise both arms in front of you and then both legs
• Try to look slightly ahead 
• If you can, raise arms and legs another inch off the floor – really feeling the lower back engage
• Release

Glute bridge

• Lie on your back with your feet flat on the floor and knees bent

• Squeeze your glutes and lift your hips off of the floor until your body forms a straight line from your knees to your shoulders
• Pause at the top, then lower back down to the starting position

Deadlift

• Stand with your feet hip-width apart
• Bend your knees to grab your dumbells, barbell or kettlebells, which should be placed either side of your feet
• Lift up as you straighten your knees and back, bringing the dumbells up with you until your arms are also straight
• Return the dumbells back down to the ground, bending your knees as you go

Images: Getty