Hamstring Stretches for Lower Back Pain That Works & When to Avoid

(Last Updated On: May 14, 2022)

Hamstring stretches for lower back pain have become a requirement to loosen back muscles based on our daily routine.

If your one of the people that sits for hours in a desk or office and rarely moves or stretches every once in a while, it will lead to muscle stiffness and tightness and poor posture, and after a long time will eventually experience potential pain in your lower back. Again, and if you’re not aware of tight hamstrings, Okay! It’s one of the reasons.

Based on this, in this article we will understand the cause why tight hamstrings can lead to back pain! Why do cyclists have the same symptoms and reasons of tight hamstring! What are the different useful routine stretches that can be done at home! List of exercises to strengthen the lower back, also, additional other exercises to improve the strength of the hamstring muscles.

Additionally, below will cover important research on the topic, for one case that hamstring stretches are not recommended.

How do Tight Hamstrings Causes Back Pain?

The hamstring muscles are a major large group in the lower body, and are responsible for supporting lower-body movement that can directly affect the lower back area, with the hamstring muscle playing a major role in bending the knee and flexing the hip joints that attached with the pelvis.

But How can Hamstring cause back pain, let’s find out!

Part of the hamstring muscle structure is generated and attached to the end of your pelvis, extending down to the knee in the back of your leg.

The time when your hamstrings gets tighten, it pulls your pelvis down, and that’s causing your lower back to bend and rotate with incorrect alignment, which will put more pressure on your spine and generate pain feelings.

Conversely, when stretching the hamstrings, it will extend and lengthen the muscles, which eliminating and release back strain or pulling the pelvis down with unnecessary pressure on the spine and discs, and this will restore the natural alignment of your back.

The good news is that to solve this problem, it can be applied by performing a few exercises in the comfort of your own home.

Hamstrings Stretches for Lower Back Pain

Many people who experience lower back pain or sciatica can now take advantage of this feature to reduce their injury by focusing on regular hamstring stretches exercises.

One major importance to stretch the hamstring muscle, to improve muscle flexibility and strength, which leads to lower back pain relief.

Standing Hamstring Stretch

In this exercise, your body will end up in a “U” shape downward. But be careful during the exercise, so if you feel a mild pain feeling, you can continue to stretch, otherwise it is better to stop.

Let’s start while standing, by slowly bending your upper body forward at waist level, while your arms hang towards the floor and keeping your legs straight.

Now gradually attempt to touch and reach your toes as much as possible, then raise your chest, then lower again to seek again.

This routine can be difficult to perform, so don’t try to hurt yourself while getting close to touching your toes, the purpose of the routine is to stretch the hamstrings, once you start feeling it, the next day you can gradually challenge more levels and reach more.

 

Chair Hamstring Stretch

You need two comfortable chairs at the same height to do this routine, by practice one leg at a time.

Sit on one chair, put your right leg straight on the second chair in front of you.
Now try to reach and touch your toes, repeat this 4 times.
Switch your legs and place your left leg on the chair, then repeat the steps.

Band Hamstring Stretch

Lie down on your back on a mat, raise one leg and wrap the band behind that foot. Then slowly pull the band forward toward your chest, while keeping your leg straight, you’ll begin to feel a stretches in your hamstrings, especially behind the knee area.

Then switch to the other leg and repeat the routine steps.

Note:

• To balance the raised leg to be straightened, hold the band with one hand, and use the other hand to push the raised leg on the thighs, to to back.
• To reduce the intensity of the exercise, you can bend the other leg (not raised) by keeping that foot flat on the floor.
• Use another version of this exercise, you can use the towel instead of the band by wrapping it behind the foot and holding each end.

 

Wall Hamstring Stretch

While lying on the ground, put your legs against the wall and keep them outstretched. While placing the glutes on the wall, make sure to keep your back straight on the floor.
Now slowly push your knee into the wall as far as possible, in order to straighten your legs.
Hold the pushed knee for 40 seconds, then release the pushing.
Repeat the exercise 6-8 times.

Note:

• Try to add a pillow under your head, it will provide you more comfort.
• It is best to use an exercise mat, to add more support to your back and protect you from the hardness of the ground.

 

Tight Hamstrings Lower Back Pain when Cycling

A common issue that cyclists complain about when riding a bike is the feeling lower back pain and stiffness.
The main role of the hamstrings when cycling, is to push the pedal using the top of the ham muscle near the hip, while pulling the puddle with the assistance of the bottom of the ham muscle while engagement from the knee.

So the hamstrings play an active role from the end-to-end muscle (the upper to the lower part of the ham muscles) in cycling exercises.

Overuse and heavy loading of the muscles will cause strain and tightness, either at the end of the hip or at the level of the knee, or both, and this will result the tight hamstrings.

Also, an imbalance between the two ends, or one end being too stretched, strong, or tighter than the other end, while riding can still cause trouble and pain.

It is therefore important to stretch the entire muscle and flexible the tighten hamstrings in general. So the idea that tight ham and back pain are a common problem, not only for ordinary people, but also for athletic players.

Also in general, it’s best to realize that any muscle that originates from the pelvis can cause pain in your back, such as the quadriceps and hip flexors when gets tighten, so stretching and exercising the lower muscles and hamstrings will naturally extend the muscles and won’t add No stress on your back.

Exercises or Stretches for Lower Back Pain

You can still add other additional exercises to your schedule other than the hamstrings, by focusing on the strength of your lower back to protect the core of the spine, improve posture alignment of your upper body and reduce the severity of back pain.

There are a lot of different exercises you can try, you can adjust them based on your goals, I create two versions of exercises based on gender, lower back exercises for men and back strengthening exercises for women.

You can get maximum benefits from these routines by starting to perform, since they will provide you with additional support, along with stretching the hamstrings, so this way you will solve the two main issues in same time.

My advice is to use fewer repetitions and a lighter weight when starting to strengthen the back muscles, at least for a while, because you are currently in pain or if you are a beginner in building strong muscles, in order to solve pain muscles problems and not increase them.

Strengthen Hamstrings to Prevent Lower Back Pain

You still have another chance to work on healing your back pain, not just by stretching the hamstrings, but the actual work of strengthening the muscles and improving their performance and effectiveness.

In this way, you increase your body’s endurance and ability to cope with the various activities that you’re performing, whether it is a normal daily routine, such as sitting at the office desk for a long time, or if you have a job that requires standing for a long time in the field or the like, or in the event that your athlete similar to a cyclist.

This way your body will adapt to manage those battles of changes if you find yourself forced to work with, or such an environment, but at this time you will be mentally and physically ready to face such cases.

The following exercises are formatted on the basis of gender, such as back exercises, your Hamstring Exercises for Men or Hamstring Workouts for Women.

When to Avoid Hamstring Stretches with Back Pain?

There are special cases where you should not do hamstring stretches when you have lower back pain, such as in the case of Intervertebral Discs.

People with such an injury should not train for a hamstring stretch. Stretching in this case may increase the severity of lower back pain for some time, cause it act to the opposite effect.

Instead of using the stretches routines listed above, they can do exercises like pulling your knees toward your chest or shoulders.

Conclusion

You should do hamstring stretches at least one to two times daily to extend the hamstrings and release those connected muscles.

Finding these different positions is a great plan so you can incorporate them into your daily activities or workouts.

Another quick way you can exercise and stretch these muscles is with banded squats, which you can perform anytime you wish in your home, that works and ensure your flexibility and improve your range of motion to reduce your back pain.