Hello, humans.
My name is Saara Haapanen. I'm the owner of Performance is Haapanen, the creator of moveatworkchallenge.com, and I give you a happier and healthier body at work.
Today, I'm going to show you three exercises you can do without getting on the ground to help strengthen your back.
Strengthening Exercises for Back Pain
Back pain is one of the biggest complaints I get from all of my humans.
For these three exercises you won't need anything. You can do them right now.
I actually encourage you to stand up and follow along with me. You can do so by watching the video, or reading below, this will take you less than five minutes and you'll feel better I promise.
What Are My Rules?
Never go into or through pain
And smile :-)
Standing Back Exercises
1. Good Morning
The first one we're going to do is a good morning.
So, you're going to put your hands on your head. We're going to bend our knees just a little bit, so we have soft knees. We're only going to be hinging at the hips.
Our hands are going to go on your head. We're going to squeeze our shoulder blades together. Our belly button is pulled in. Our spine stays flat.
You're going to tip forward until you're almost parallel to the ground. Then you're going to come back up.
You're going to keep that soft bend in your knees and you're going to feel this all the way up and down your spine. We're going to do about 10 of these. Of course, you can always do more if that's what you want, if you feel like that's what your body needs.
Make sure you squeeze your shoulder blades together. We don't want a hunchback here. The flattest back you ever did see.
2. Shoulder Blade Squeeze
This next move, I want you to pretend there's something like a pencil or a marker right in between your shoulder blades and you're going to pinch it.
You're going to reach out in front of you and then we're going to pull back. We're going to pinch it three times and then reach out in front.
While you are here, I want you to squeeze your cheeks together, (not the ones on your face). Pull your belly button in, and slightly tilt your pelvis forward.
Are you doing all that? You're getting bonus abs! You're welcome.
We'll do ten rounds of these and then we're going to do a little bonus at the end.
Keep squeezing those cheeks together. Keep pulling that belly button in, more like you're getting punched versus trying to put on skinny jeans.
On your final one, hold it back and do 20 little pulses. Squeeze those cheeks!
3. IYT Back Strengthening Exercises
This next exercise is going to get all the way up and down your spine.
You're going to tip over, super flat back again. Think about pinching those shoulder blades, pull that belly button in, and tip over. Arms stay straight.
You're going to reach your arms up to the ceiling, staying narrow. I call this the letter I.
Bring your arms back down, thumbs stay facing up and then reach your arms up to ceiling, a little wider in the shape of the letter Y.
Bring them back down. Thumbs stay facing up, and reach your arms up and out to the side to form the letter T.
My neck is long. I'm looking straight down. I, Y, T.
We're going to do 10 of those. It's actually 30 when I say 10, because there's three moves.
If it helps, you can think about pinching that pencil in between your shoulder blades every time.
You should have a beautiful burning sensation along your spine, which is different than pain. You are going for endurance and that "work feeling".
Join the Move at Work Challenge
As always, I'm so proud of you for doing something for you today and taking care of your body, because it's the one and only place you have to live.
If you're interested in this or you think your company would love to have Move at Work, I encourage you to visit moveatworkchallenge.com.
I would love to see you here again soon.
Interested in learning more moves to strengthen your back? Check out these dumbbell back strengthening exercises.