Discover why stretching your hamstrings might be worsening your back pain and learn alternative methods to alleviate discomfort.

Understanding the connection between hamstrings and back pain

When experiencing back pain, it's important to understand the connection between your hamstrings and the discomfort you're feeling. You've likely heard of the sciatic nerve. This runs from your lumbar spine, through your glutes, and down into your hamstrings. When people have "sciatica" they report nerve-like pain and tingling down their leg, sometimes even to their foot! 

However, back pain can still radiate into the glutes and/or hamstring without this nerve-like pain. This can feel like tightness or sharp pain. As a result, people feel the need to stretch this out, especially when one side feels way tighter than the other. 

This pain you're feeling is likely an aggravation/irritation/inflammation of the low back and its joints/nerves. Therefore, continuously stretching this will keep everything aggravated and keep you from healing up. 

This is the most common thing I hear on someone's first visit for a back flare up. They are continuously trying to stretch away their pain only to find it doesn't help, and sometimes makes it even worse after. 

So if I shouldn't stretch, what should I do? 

Do more of what feels good. If you have pain bending over, or tightness with this, then spend more time standing. Go for a long walk, run if you can, anything but continuing to aggravate your symptoms. 

Next, you'll need to find why you're having this irritation. Adjust your work setup, car setup, the way you're performing repetitive activities. This part is crucial for symptom management. 

Once the irritation has subsided or reached a level of tolerance, you now can re-introduce those aggravating movements. 

Don't stop moving. 

Whatever your symptoms, find a way to keep moving. Keep as much normalcy as you can, keep elevating your heart rate, and keep moving forward. 

If you or someone you know needs help with this, don't hesitate to reach out. I help active individuals like you kick this problem and keep moving. 

Thanks for reading!