Search for “the best exercise for back pain” and you’ll get dozens of confident, contradictory answers. Bird dogs. Glut bridges. Stretching. Never stretching.
The reason the advice conflicts is that most of it is missing a variable: when. An exercise that’s perfect in week six can be miserable in week one. So rather than hunting for one magic movement, I match the exercise to the stage of recovery.
The five stages
1. Mobility. In the early, acute phase the goal is simply to get your back moving again. Gentle, low-load movement helps calm things down and reassures a sensitive nervous system that motion is safe.
2. Static strength. Next we build stability and endurance — holding good positions and increasing your tolerance to time under load rather than chasing heavy weight.
3. Eccentric strength. Once some strength returns, slow controlled lowering lets us rebuild range of movement and teach your back to accept load in positions it has been avoiding.
4. Dynamic strength (eccentric and concentric). Now you’re ready for something that looks like a normal gym programme for the back. This is where today’s programme sits.
5. Functional fitness. Finally, we progress into more demanding, less predictable, real-world movement.
What’s in today’s programme
Three sections, each with a different job.
Section 1 — Hip range of movement
Stiff hips make the lower back do work in compromised positions. Here we open-up hip range while the lower back holds a stable position, so you’re building mobility and control at the same time. Strength through a range is what makes that range stick.
- Deep ATG lunges
- Stiff-legged forward bends
- Side lunges
How to run it: slow and deliberate, moving only as deep as you can control. Think quality of position over depth. Aim for 6-24 slow reps x 3 rounds.
Section 2 — Abdominal endurance
We’re not chasing maximum abdominal strength here. For back health, endurance and control matter more than a big one-rep effort — the trunk’s job is to hold a position for a long time, not to produce a single huge contraction. That’s why this section is timed intervals rather than sets and reps.
- Controlled small crunches
- Reverse crunches (knees toward head)
- Reach toward the ceiling
- Ceiling kicks
- Bicycle crunches
How to run it: work through the list as a circuit on a set work-and-rest interval. Keep the movements small, controlled and continuous. Stop the interval if your form breaks down — a sloppy extra ten seconds isn’t buying you anything. I would recommend 10 – 40 seconds per exercise x 3 rounds.
Section 3 — Back strength through range
This is a vital part of the programme especially if you have had long-standing low back pain. Long-standing inflammation leads to infiltration of scar tissue and fat tissue in the muscles closest to the spine. These strength and stretch exercises help to rebuild healthy supportive muscles around your spine. We build tolerance to load in a variety of positions, including some fairly demanding ones — because those are exactly the positions you end up in when you lift a toddler, reach into the boot of the car, or pick up something awkward at an angle. Training them deliberately, in a controlled setting, is what makes them unremarkable in daily life.
- Roman chair back extensions — or Jefferson curls as an alternative
- Roman chair side lifts — or Side Plank hip dips as an alternative
How to run it: slow, controlled and not too heavy. Aim for 6-24 slow reps x 2-3 rounds.
A note on rotation
You’ll notice there’s no dynamic twisting here. Loaded, fast rotation puts a demanding combination of compression and shear through the discs and facet joints, and there’s little to gain from it at this stage. We build anti-rotation strength in earlier stages — the ability to resist twist — and reintroduce genuine functional rotation later, in stage five, once the foundation is there.
Getting the most out of it
- Two to three sessions a week is plenty alongside your normal training.
- Mild muscular fatigue and soreness are fine. Sharp pain, or pain that travels down a leg, is not — back off and let me know.
- Consistency beats intensity. A moderate session you actually do three times a week will always outperform a heroic one you do fortnightly.
- Don’t skip stages. If any of this feels like too much, you’re likely not finished with stage three yet. That’s information, not failure.
This programme is designed for people who have already worked through the earlier stages of recovery. If you’re in an acute episode, or you’re not sure which stage you’re in, check with your practitioner before starting.