Do you wake up stiff, struggle to straighten up after sitting, or feel like your lower back is old beyond your years in the mornings? The instinct is to stretch it out and do strength exercises. However, it matters how you implement this.
If you just constantly stretch your muscles, you can gain mobility without having the strength to control that increased range of movement. In this scenario, your body tends to increase muscle tension to protect that weak range — which is often what you feel as stiffness. Your body only lets you use the range it trusts you to control.
On the other hand, building strength only in a small range of movement can make you feel even stiffer. What catches people out is that you can be getting stronger and still feel restricted, because strength built in the middle of a movement does not automatically show up at the end of it.
So, the goal is not more stretch, or even just more strength. It is strength through the full range you actually need to use in day-to-day life: lunging to a low shelf, bending to pick something off the floor, reaching across to the passenger seat. In these movements, you need to be both flexible and strong throughout the movement, so these things need to be trained together.
Generally, I rehab a dysfunctional area of the body in five stages. Today, we are particularly focusing on stage three (Earn range under control) for the back and pelvis. However, for your reference, before going any further, here are the five stages I work through:
- Restore movement. When you are stuck and sore, the first job is getting the area moving again — circulation, gentle range, and better positional awareness from the region.
- Build load tolerance. Isometric holds teach the spine to accept load and rebuild confidence without demanding range you do not have yet.
- Earn range under control. Slow eccentrics — lowering under load — through progressively bigger ranges. This is where mobility becomes yours to keep.
- Build full strength. Once control is solid, traditional strength work.
- Add complexity. Technically harder, more functional patterns that look like real life.
Most people jump straight to stage four — or never leave stage one. Stage three is the most skipped, and usually the one that needs the most time if you want the rehab to hold. Here are my favourite exercises for it.
My favourite exercises for a stiff back
- ATG lunge — opens the hip flexors so the pelvis can sit better aligned under the spine.
- Jefferson curl — segmental spinal flexion under load. Start with an empty bar or 2–5 kg.
- Wide stiff-legged forward bend — lengthens and strengthens the hamstrings and adductors, which can tug on the pelvis when tight.
- Seated wide-knee forward fold — adductor workout, for a deeper squat and easier floor work.
- Side bend with a band, or over the Roman chair — the plane almost everyone neglects.
Each pairs a light load with full range, so you train flexibility and strength in the same rep.
How to run it
Do these exercises every second day. Time under load is more important than exact set or rep range. However, I recommend getting up to about 100 seconds of load, so that could be five rounds of 20 seconds of slow reps, or three rounds of 33 seconds. Keep the load light enough that the last rep looks like the first and add range before you add weight.
Mild muscle soreness for a day or two is normal early on. You should generally feel good after the session — a warm, worked feeling rather than pain. However, sharp pain or nerve symptoms down the leg are not OK — ease off and get it looked at.
That is how you turn a stiff back into a mobile, capable younger-feeling back that you can actually use.