What can I do for a sore back?

I too have a bad back and am following a 99-cent book titled Low Back Pain Exercises, which I downloaded from Amazon. It gives you 12 easy-to-do daily exercises that are helping me a lot. This is the first exercise:

Lie on your stomach on the floor and rest your chin in the palms of your hands as if you’re reading a book. It will hurt but stay in that position for at least a minute—two is better. This position will force your lower back into the shape it was meant to have before you wrecked it by too much lifting or twisting or whatever. After a few days you’ll notice the difference.

Good luck.

If you’re in a position that’s comfortable I say stay in it for a while. Hopefully, the muscles relax.

Lie on your stomach and lift your head-shoulders, arching your back. Hold for 10 seconds, relax and repeat 20 times. Do this every day, in bed or on the floor.

Arching? I’ve never heard of that for a back pain problem? It sounds a little scary to me.

Got a hot water bottle? Deep Heat Cream?

I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this but the last time I had a sore back I dug over the back garden and by the time I was finished the pain had gone.

Bad backs are common for larger people. If you really are nearly as tall as your name suggests, odds are that you’ll have back issues regardless, so you better get used to it. I have a friend who is about the same proportions I am (a little on the slender side), but about a foot taller. The Square-Cube law (assuming the same shape, someone twice as big will be four (2^2) times as strong but eight (2^3) times as heavy) basically means that he has a lot more weight (almost 60%) to carry with only a little (~36%) more muscle. At 7’, ~300 pounds, he has back/joint problems all the time.

If I read your profile right, you’re ~6’ 5.5” and 272lbs. While 272 pounds may seem like a lot, you’re only slightly overweight for your size. Still, you are a big boy, and that will cause you issues even if you live healthy and all; simple physics will cause you problems.

In the short-term, staying flat and taking the weight off will help, but unless you want this to be a fairly chronic thing, you’re going to have to do a little work on strengthening your core muscles. It’s even more important past age 30 as us older folks don’t heal as fast as kids.

@JLeslie Kind of like a reverse crunch/situp. It helps strengthen the muscles that keep you upright, mainly the ones in the lower back.

@jerv I arch my back as a stretch in ballet. I do it standing though. I tend to favor standing exercises to floor exercises though.

When I had a back injury no one told me to do such a thing. I’m talking about doctors and physical therapists. When I had my back injury I want to be curled n a ball. I agree muscle stragnth and core strength helps prevent injury, but in my experience what has given me to best relief when I am injured is to protect the area, meaning not strain it and continue to use it enough that flexibility and muscle stregnth is maintained. For back injuries not straining it usually means not lifting more than 10 pounds at once, not reaching far, only liftng by bending your knees, not at your waist.

@all thanks I bought some over the counter back pain pills. They work. And I feel mellow.

@JLeslie Not straining it also means not slamming into other vehicles on the interstate hard enough to keep you out of work for a month. But once I healed up enough for physical therapy after that little adventure, that arching was one of the things I was made to do.

@JLeslie It’s an exercise doctors give you to relieve back pain and strengthen back muscles. When my back acts up, this exercise brings immediate relief!

If the hot shower helps, get some ThermaCare long lasting patches.
Little slice of Heaven in the winter months.