A supple spine is the basis of a healthy and pain-free back. Whether you want to address lower back pain and tightness, or you just want to keep your back healthy, moving your spine in a gentle and careful way is key. It’s important to keep all 24 vertebrae of the spine “free” and unstuck. Age, misalignment, repetitive movements, long periods of sitting, etc. can all contribute to rigidity in parts of the spine. In order to keep our spine supple and healthy with yoga, let’s look at these 24 little bones.
Yoga has a variety of poses to keep or regain the spine’s mobility and health. The 24 vertebrae are connected to each other through a complex structure of ligaments and muscles that need appropriate movement. If I don’t do these exercises every day my back feels tight. I know that with time it would start to feel as if I had only two parts to my back: a rigid upper back and a separate, equally rigid lower back. It doesn’t have to be like that!
Try the poses below for about 10 minutes a day, making sure they don’t hurt. If you’ve recently had a herniated disc and you still experience pain, these movements are not right for you. Instead, if you’re interested in recovering from back pain with yoga therapy, do have a look at my back-care package. It’s available in person or via Zoom. Also have a look at this blog: https://beneyoga.co.uk/yoga-therapy-for-a-slipped-disc/.
If your lower back feels tight or you have a very mild lower back pain, the exercises below can be very helpful. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.
Yoga practices to keep our spine supple and healthy
1. Cat and Cow
Start on all fours, with your hands underneath the shoulders and knees underneath the hips. Exhale and bring the abdomen up to the spine, arching the spine like an angry cat. Allow your head to hang down — this “cat stretch” is also a wonderful release for the neck.
When you next inhale, return to a straight back and then lift through the chest, so the back is slightly arched in the other way. If you’re new to this exercise and your back hurts at the moment, you may need to just bring your back to a straight position, rather than arching it.
Once you’re familiar with the movement, see if you can move from the bottom of your spine first: the tailbone curls under as you exhale, and then imagine moving one vertebra at a time to the full cat stretch. The head is the last to be involved in the movement. Inhale and again think of starting with the tailbone first, allowing the movement to slowly engage the rest of the spine “one vertebra at a time”.
2. Child’s pose
When you have finished 5-7 repetitions of cat and cow, rest in child’s pose. Use a rolled towel under the ankles if the feet are tight, and maybe a rolled towel behind the knees if your knees are painful. Rest the head on the mat or on your hands. Rest for a minute or so, if comfortable.
3. Bridge
Turn around to lie on your back. Place your feet a foot away from your body and hip-width apart. Put weight on your feet and with an exhalation press the lower back on the floor. Inhale and come back to the starting position. Do this pelvic tilt a few times. In itself, this pelvic tilt is soothing for lower back tightness. After a few pelvic tilts, inhale and roll your spine off the floor, again trying to do this “one vertebra at a time” until your hips are as high as comfortable. Keep pushing down on the feet. The feet should be underneath your knees. Roll back down with the next exhalation. Roll up and down into the bridge position a few times.
4. Twist
Hug your knees towards the chest and stay in this position for a few breaths. Then slowly lower your knees to one side while looking to the other side. If this position is new for you it’s very important to start gently, not lowering the knees all the way to the floor but holding them midway with the hand on that side. First get used to this way of twisting the spine, for quite a few days. If you’re not used to twisting and you start too enthusiastically, this movement can cause back pain, so please be careful. Even when you’re used to this spinal rotation, you want to keep both shoulder blades on the floor and this may mean keeping the legs higher up. That’s fine and will allow for a more efficient twist in the spine.
6. Hugging knees to chest
Come back to the centre and hug both knees towards the chest. Place one hand on each knee. Exhale and bring the knees a little closer to you, inhale and allow the legs to move further away. Make this a very gentle movement that is guided by the length of your breathing, rather than pulling the knees with your arms in a vigorous pace!
In order to keep our spine supple and healthy with yoga, these movements of the spine are important to do frequently. Apart from moving the spine, it’s also important to lengthen it, to release the muscles along the spine. In the next blog in two weeks time, we’ll have a look at the poses that can help you with that. In the meantime, keep practising these movements regularly and let me know how you get on!
If you would like to discuss how yoga therapy can help you with your back pain or back health, do book a free consultation call here: https://beneyoga.co.uk/book-a-free-consultation-call/.
Namaste
A question, not a comment. I have a problem with anything on all fours since two frozen shoulders, thoracic outlet syndrome and bilateral carpal tunnel syndrome. Is there a way around this? I can’t get the 90 degree angle with hands flat on the floor.
Before all this happened I used to exercise a lot, so it’s very frustrating, as you can imagine!
So glad I found your website though – there’s a lot here.
Hello Christine,
You can keep your spine supple in a cross-legged position: arching the back and then straightening it as in cat-cow. This position also works for a gentle twist. These loosening movements for the spine can also be done on a chair or standing. Thank you for bringing it up because this is definitely good material for a future blog.
It is difficult to know for sure when I have not worked with you personally, but I think that the following could be useful for you as well:
neck stretches and the pectoral stretch in my blog “End of Year challenge, part 3” of 15/12/16
and the restorative rest position in the blog about slouching of 13/2/16, but use a smaller prop such as a rolled towel under the spine and a cushion under your head.
All the best and thank you for your question! Bene