There are a myriad of causes for low back pain, but today I am focusing on one in particular: the psoas (pronounced: so-az) muscle. The "low back" link on my front page leads to an excellent picture of psoas and how it connects to the lower spine and femur (the thigh bone). Its main job is to flex your hip, so if your leg is free to move, your thigh rises: think of walking up stairs. If your leg is held steady, you bend at the hips: think of doing full sit-ups.
When you sit for a long time, psoas is in a shortened position and it gets used to it. So when you go to stand up, and ask psoas to straighten out again, please, it sometimes gets quite snippy and the next thing you know, your bottom half is standing, but you're all bent over with your low back shouting nasty things at you. That would be psoas voicing its disapproval.
Usually, at this point, the only thing to do is to hobble around until the pain lessens and you are able to stand erect. That is fine for the short term, but the next time you sit at your desk or table, psoas will leap at the chance to shorten up and make life difficult. Massage and chiropractic can help, but one of the best things you can do for yourself is to do some easy stretches to keep psoas used to the idea that it's okay to lengthen.
Here's how: Stand with both feet pointing forward, about shoulder distance apart. Move one foot forward as far as you comfortably can, keeping it pointed forward. Now, and you may need to hold on to something so you don't topple over, slide your other foot backward, bending your front knee as you go lower. It's okay to lean your body forward some, but try to keep your knee from going ahead of your foot. If you are flexible, you might want to try this at the foot of your stairs. Put the front foot on the first or second step and then slide the back foot backwards.
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