How to get rid of muscle knots and pain in your lower back FAST

hey what's going on guys chair dextran here doctor of physical therapy at Kona Titan calm and today I wanted to talk all about muscle knots in your lower back specifically what they are why you get them and about 10 simple exercises that you can do right now at home to help eliminate yours let's get started right now alright so one of my more popular videos here on YouTube is all about how to get rid of muscle knots in your neck and shoulders and upper back I'm gonna leave a link to this in the description to this video I'll also drop in a little tag right up here above you can click that link that's floating around up there and that will take you to that video that's again probably one of my more popular ones however one of the questions that I'm getting a lot in the comments to that video are well this is great for the upper back what do I do about my lower back and if my lower back has these muscle knots in it what are some things that I can do to eliminate tension and to eliminate knots in my lower back and here you go you guys I'm all about helping you guys out let me shoot a quick video about that and show you some things that I like to recommend to patients in order to eliminate these muscle knots in kind of your lower back and in the top of your hip now of course before we do that I've got to give you the anatomy lesson and I've got to give you a physiology lesson so what is a muscle knot so the muscles in our bodies the fibers in those muscles are lined up like this and in the relaxed state they're nice and elongated and nice and loose like this in the contracted state they slide over each other and they come closer together just like this so relaxed and contracted what a muscle knot is it's an area of a muscle so certain fibers in that muscle to get into this contracted state and then don't let go and so they stay in this kind of this constant contracted state without that relaxation that's what causes that tension that's what causes that pain you can actually feel it in your back if you've kind of you know feel around in your lower back if you've got one area that feels tighter than the others that's most likely a muscle not that you've got going on back there there are some things that you can do to get rid of it that's what I want to teach you about right now before we do that however let's talk a little bit more about why these muscle knots occur why you get these muscle knots so that we can better understand how we treat them this three main causes that I see why people develop these muscle nuts in their lower back are going to be weakness lack of activity or like a sedentary lifestyle and then some postural issues as well now weakness we all know how important it is to keep a nice strong core if your core is not strong and if you develop weakness over time that's one of those predisposing factors to causing those muscle knots to get tight and then to not let go and so weakness is a big thing we're going to show you some strengthening exercises in this video the second one is a lack of activity or a sedentary lifestyle your muscles are designed to move your muscles are designed to contract and relax if you spend all day maybe sitting in a desk sitting on your couch laying in your bed whatever you're doing if you don't live a very active lifestyle you're not getting that muscle contraction in those areas and then that can be another reason why those muscles get tight and bound up so definitely a lack of activity is another one finally posture is a big issue as well specifically what I call a desk job posture so if you spend all day seated and especially if your hip flexors are in this shortened state and then you stand up and they pull excessively on your lower back that can be another big predisposing factor for these muscle knots and so those are the three things that we certainly want to address we're gonna do those with a bunch of exercises I'm gonna go grab my wife we'll bring her in and we'll demonstrate again about ten different ways that you can help to alleviate some of these muscle knots and this muscle tension in your lower back alright so I brought in my lovely assistant you guys are used to seeing my wife she pops up in my videos quite regularly but we're gonna run through again about ten different ways that you can treat those muscle knots that you're getting in your lower back now the first thing that I always recommend to people is just some heat on that area so if you if you grab a heating pad and what I'll do is I've got a couple favorites that I like I'll leave a link in the description to this video you can click on that if you don't have a heating pad between the two of us like almost every day they're great it's a great way to open up capillaries to promote blood flow into an area also to promote some relaxation in those knots and so a heating pad and so I would just put that down she would lay on it on back we use it in our chairs like sitting up in your chair works works well right there leave it on for about 10 or 15 minutes take it off for about 10 or 15 minutes and then you can really do that all day long so a heating pad is the first thing that you're going to reach for now the second thing that we need to do is stretch out some of those tight muscles so what Camille is going to do is get down up here on her hands and knees we're gonna show you my favorite it's a it's a popular yoga pose to stretch your lower back it's called the Child's Pose and so she's down on her knees and basically you sit down on your heels your hands stay out here in front of you and that's how you're gonna stretch out that lower back now you can the thing that I like about this is you can actually bias it from one side to another depending on maybe which side your muscle knots are she's gonna walk her hands over here to the right side and then if she kind of sits down and to the left what that's going to do is increase the stretch on the lower left side of her back down here so you can really kind of facilitate that stretch a lot of these muscles that you're going to get knots in basically from your pelvis to your bottom rib with some attachment in your lower spine or in your in your lumbar spine your lower back right here anything we can do to kind of pull the pelvis away from the rib is actually going to stretch that out a little more effectively so that's her over here to the right side she can also walk over to the left side that's going to facilitate and enhance that stretch over here on the right she's going to hold that for about 20 seconds and repeat that about three times the other stretch that I love Camille's gonna roll over on her back and we're gonna do what we call a piriformis stretch now ten low back pain patients can walk into my clinic and I guarantee about nine of them are gonna have tension through that upper hip kind of that piriformis area it's a popular place to get knots in your back or in the back of your hip to stretch that out what she's gonna do is cross this right leg over her left with her head she's gonna reach down and she's gonna grab right around that back of that left leg and then pull her left knee up towards her left shoulder now the higher she pulls on that she's gonna feel that stretch correct me if I'm wrong right through the top right through the top of that right glute is what we're going for again land and so we're gonna hold that in a comfortable position same thing 20 seconds three times to just try to promote some relaxation in those muscle fibers in there so those are the stretches that I like she's gonna do it on she doesn't walk around in circles she's got to even it out awesome so then let's get into some actual resistive exercises we mentioned hey let's go ahead and stay there we mentioned how the the weakness and the lack of muscle activation are a couple of factors that can predispose you to give these muscle knots and so let's show you some resistive exercises we'll even just some bodyweight exercises to help those out so on her back just like this what Camille is gonna do first is we're going to do some bridges she's gonna squeeze her butt together so contract the glutes and then lift your hips straight up towards the ceiling and so then it looks just like that she's gonna hold that for about three to five seconds and then come right back down now the emphasis here you really want to focus on contracting your glutes to lift your hips up towards the ceiling but you're also gonna fill a lot of activation in those lower back muscles this one is safe for I'd say most people go ahead and come back again most people who experience low back pain can tolerate this exercise this is a popular one that I give out it's just a great way to strengthen what we call the posterior chain meaning your hamstrings your glutes and your lower back go ahead and come up again are all active as she's doing this bridging exercise typically I'll recommend do that ten times ten ten reps and then repeat that for three sets just once a day on that one should be adequate for you the other one that I like go ahead she's gonna roll over onto her hands and knees and we're gonna run through what we call a cat cow or a cat camel I make a point I don't I try not to say cat cow I got I don't know there's something about it that sounds offensive to me anyway we're gonna we're gonna go with a cat camel sometimes referred to as a cat cow this is another great yoga pose to just work on stretching and some muscle activation in this lower part of her back so to get into the angry cat part of the stretch she's gonna basically raise her back up towards the ceiling as high as she can go looks just like that hold that for about five seconds and then she's gonna lower back down and this is the cow or the camel part of the pose right here now kamila and I have worked enough on this that she goes are actually really well the thing that I see the most often in people is that you get a ton of mobile here but not a ton of mobility down through here this is the area that I really want you to focus on so she comes back up into that angry cat what you're gonna see if she's actually going to tuck her hips kind of underneath herself she's gonna roll her pelvis underneath herself to really get a good stretch through the back then if she comes down into the cow part of the pose she's actually gonna roll roll her hips roll her pelvis forward you can see how much that's really going to enhance that stretch and facilitate that that motion right through that lower back part right there and so I tell people about ten reps on this so you're gonna come up and down ten times and then that's that's usually good so about ten times just once a day on that one looks great just like that nice okay and so those are the stretches and the exercises that I like let me show you guys some trigger point release techniques that I like we're gonna get rid of this table coming right at you right now alright so another great way that you're gonna eliminate these muscle knots in your lower back would be to do some actual what we call trigger point release techniques basically it's also called an acupressure technique you you find that not you've loaded up with pressure you hold it for a certain amount of time and what happens is that muscle not kind of melts underneath that tension or underneath that pressure and basically what you're doing is you're starving that area of blood flow causing it to relax and to reset if you will and then when you release it blood rushes back in and hopefully what you've done is again helped that area to reset and so what we're gonna do is we've got some tennis balls here well I've got a couple I've got some tennis balls and I've got some golf balls can those gonna lay down on her lower back and then what she would do um if you just have the if you just have that that knot on one side of your back let's say it's on her on the right side of her back she's gonna take this tennis ball roll slightly to her left and then find where that spot is in her lower back and then just rolled right back onto the top of it and again you might have to adjust it up or down in or out it shouldn't be right on your spine it should be just to the side of your spine of your vertebrae column and then you'll be able to find some of those muscle knots in there and then what she can do is she can just lay right on now if a tennis ball is too big or a racquetball or a golf ball works well golf balls obviously a lot harder there's not as much forgiveness with a golf ball but I wouldn't go necessarily too much bigger than this the other technique that I like to show people is if you get these if you give these muscle knots on both side of your spine you can actually grab two tennis balls stuff them in a sock and now all the sock does is just kind of hold them in place and keep them together so you can roll onto it a little easier so you can see that depending on how big your spine is or how wide you want those tennis balls to be you can kind of you know pull them apart or put them closer together so now she can take that put one of those balls on each side of her spine and then you're actually performing this acupressure technique on both sides and now it's gonna be uncomfortable that's not the most comfortable thing in the world to lay on those balls but what you do is again about 20 to 30 seconds or just until you feel that not kind of melting away that's about the recommended amount of time on there the last thing that you can do are you doing okay is that the last thing you can do is actually promote what we would call a a muscle flossing while you're doing that acupressure and so what she's gonna do is lay one leg down straight and then simply what you have to do is raise this knee all the way up and then all the way down and now what we're doing here and she can even facilitate that by grabbing it so she's gonna she's gonna bring it up and then pull and then release and then bring it up and then pull and then release and what we're doing there is we're actually promoting some motion in that muscle while we've got that pressure on there it's just a way that we can actually facilitate that release what do you think she hates that one you can go ahead and bail off of there now what I never recommend to people what I see a lot especially here on YouTube people will grab their foam roller and say you've got a foam roll your low back to release those muscle nuts now I I really don't like that I think the foam roller is great for your upper back but for your lower back it's just too big this is a six inch foam roller you can see the diameter on this is really big we've got to get pressure basically between your ribs and your at your pelvis that's not really a lot of space this is too big to fit into that space the other thing and go ahead and try this out the other thing if she were to foam roll her lower back there was just a there's no comfortable way but you can see what she's doing she's she's doing an ab crunch while we're doing it the idea is to relax and mobilize that you're good the idea is to relax and mobilize not to sustain an aggressive contraction while you're on a foam roll and so if it's me I don't I don't like to foam roll the lower back now one thing that I do like to foam roll is gonna be kind of the top of the hip top of the glute and the piriformis muscle to do that she's gonna go ahead and sit upright onto that foam roll she's gonna cross one leg over the other and then if she rolls kind of to that right side put your hands back behind me there it is and then we can roll up and down over the top of that Pyramus muscle that way again a popular popular a common place to get muscle knots is in the top of the hip the top of that glue this is a great way that you can mobilize and and kind of get to those muscle knots in those areas just like that so don't foam roll your lower back but definitely foam roll your your upper glue and your piriformis finally the last thing that I like is going to be one of these their canes now again I mentioned to you earlier that I did another video that was all about muscle knots in the neck and upper-back we kind of introduced the theracane in that spot it's a great way that you can just kind of apply that pressure to that spot in your back but then with this you can also do it so you can turn it this way and then you can do it with your lower back as well and so she's going to just grab both handles on that theracane and find the spot that she wants to massage and mobilize in there so a pressure point so then as soon as she finds that trigger point you would just hold it on that spot to again apply acupressure into those areas until you get those muscle knots to release now again these Terra Kings this is another one I think Oh give this from our office upstairs just because that's where it's always that I will leave a link in the description to this video for the theracane as well that's another thing that will really help you guys out and so then finally the thing that we talked about was going to be some posture and some posture issues what I would recommend there and one more link for you I'll leave a link in this video I'll also have a pop-up right up here I've got a video all about how to how to correct your low back posture it's got some good exercises got some good stretches so make sure that you go make sure that you go and check that one out that will be easier I know this video is getting long that will be easier so just go and check that video out it does a much better job it goes into a lot more detail than I want to go into right here so I hope you guys check that out so there you have them you guys about what 10 to 12 different things that you can do to help eliminate some of the muscle knots and some of the pressure that you feel in your lower back again I give those to my patients all the time I give those to my wife all the time I do them on myself all the time they work you guys they help your back there may be a little uncomfortable at first but consistency over time yields great results and so I hope you guys check those out I hope that they help you out hey I hope you found this video beneficial I hope you found it helpful if you did do me a favor hit that thumbs up button down below and thank you so much for those likes in advance also if you haven't done so already it's a great chance to subscribe to tone and tighten I try to share a lot of great physical therapy tips some rehab tips I try to answer you guys's questions those things that you write to me about this is an easy way for me to to kind of convey that knowledge to you so I hope that helps you guys out I hope you subscribe to this channel also if you have any questions or comments on this video or anything that we talked about please feel free to leave that down below on a comment I'll get to that just as soon as I can and until next time we'll see you right back here on tone and tighten [Music]

Channel: Tone and Tighten

Views: 281,694

Keywords: how to treat muscle knots in lower back, how to treat lower back muscle knots, how to treat muscle knots, how to eliminate muscle knots, how to get rid of muscle knots, muscle knots, muscle knots in lower back, muscle knot in lumbar spine, lower back muscle knot, lower back pain, how to treat lower back pain, treat muscle knot at home, physical therapy, physical therapist, physical therapy for muscle knot, treat your own muscle knot, muscle knot therapy, knot in lower back

Id: -PuVD8OQ2_A

Length: 17min 42sec (1062 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 04 2019