Lower back exercises to strengthen your back. (2023)

Lower back exercises can be done at home or at the gym. Of course, when you’re at the gym, you’ll have access to various machines, free weights, and even benches that allow different types of motions.

At home, your options are limited if you don’t have a full-fledged home gym set up. Keeping that in mind, it’s important to be aware of exercises to strengthen the lower back when you’re attempting to workout at home.

Lower back exercises at home

The following are some of the lower back exercises that you can incorporate into your home workout routine to gradually strengthen your lower back while reducing pain.

Ideally, exercises for low back pain or exercises to strengthen the lower back at home shouldn’t be high-impact exercises. The idea is to work on the muscles around the region, but not put an intense impact on it.

1) Bridge

To do bridge:

• Lie flat on the mat with your legs folded from your knees.
• Keep your arms beside your hips.
• Slowly raise your hips upwards while your feet press into the floor.
• Contract your glutes while you’re lifting the hips off the floor.
• Hold the position for 3 to 5 seconds before gently returning to the starting position.

2) Single-leg bridge

This exercise is slightly more intense than the bridge.

To do the single leg-bridge:

• Lie flat on the mat with your right leg folded from your knees.
• Keep your arms beside your hips.
• Keeping your right foot on the floor, raise your hips by contracting your glutes.
• At the same time, your left leg should raise as well while maintaining its completely extended position.
• Hold the position for a few seconds before returning to the floor.
• Repeat for at least ten reps for each side.

3) Swimmer

To do a swimmer:

• Lie down on your stomach.
• Stretch your hands in front of you while your legs are extended backwards.
• Keeping a good stretch on the lower back, lift your right hand and left leg at the same time.
• Hold the position for a second before returning to the starting position.
• Lift your left hand and right leg next and hold the position for a second.
• Return to the starting position.
• Keep repeating on both sides.

4) Superman

This is slightly more intense than the swimmer.

• Lie down on your stomach.
• Stretch your hands in front of you while your legs are extended backwards.
• Lift both hands (by lifting the chest) and both legs at the same time.
• Ensure that your hips are on the floor while your lower back extends and contracts with each movement.
• Hold the contraction for a couple of seconds.

5) Bodyweight deadlifts

To do bodyweight deadlifts:

• Stand straight with your feet shoulder-width apart.
• Keep your chest flared and your hands in front of you.
• Hinge forward and bring your torso towards the floor while keeping a straight back.
• Squeeze through the glutes to return to the starting position.

Lower back exercises should be done with care and steadiness. Given that your spine runs from the lower back, it’s important to not put unnecessary pressure on it.

Exercises to strengthen the lower back in the gym include deadlifts, bridges, and certain leg exercises. However, you shouldn’t try to lift the heaviest weight at once. In fact, it’s best to maintain a moderate weight while you focus on execution and reps.

None of the lower back exercises should be done hastily. The best piece of information about lower back exercises is that you must always correct your form before attempting to increase weight. If you don’t do that, you won’t be able to strengthen your lower back, and also you will put it in harm’s way.

Finally, lower back exercises at home do not need to be done every day. In fact, if you have lower back pain, you should give it rest after exercising for the muscles to recover. Even if you’re just stretching them, it’s better to rest your muscles before working on them all over again!

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