These 7 Foam Roller Exercises Can Help Ease Your Nagging Back Pain
Think about your body on a bike: Your hips are back, your arms are forward, and your torso is leaning forward at a pretty intense angle. Of course your back is going to hurt at the end of a long ride. (And your current work from home setup isn’t helping matters, either.) Incorporating some postride stretching into your routine is a good place to start, but a using a foam roller for back pain is another great solution.
When you’re riding, you’re spending a ton of time with your lower back in a flexed position, which puts an abnormal amount of stress on the quads, glutes, lumbar spine, and paraspinal muscles—you’re basically stretching them continuously without rest. “Any sport that requires an individual to be stuck (for lack of a better term) in one position is likely to cause problems,” says Kyle Stull, Ph.D., a NASM-certified trainer, performance enhancement specialist, and former senior manager of program design for TriggerPoint.
But the pain you feel in your back could actually be manifesting from other muscles, especially a weak core, explains Suzanne Hawson, an orthopaedic clinical specialist in physical therapy and professor in human biomechanics at California State University, Northridge. “The back is such a trouble area for cyclists because of a combination of muscle tightness and dysfunction in your core muscles, which affect overall posture both on and off the bicycle,” she says.
Your core isn’t just your six-pack abs, or rectus abdominis, the trunk flexors that help you bend forward. It’s your erector spinae muscle group, which helps you stand up straight and bend backward; your internal and external obliques, which help you twist left and right; your transverse abdominis, which pulls your belly button in; your multifidus, which holds your spine stable; and your quadratus lumborum, which connects your pelvis to your spine.
Some people even consider the hip flexors, upper back, and iliopsoas muscles, which connect your spine to your legs, part of your core because of all the ways the muscles in the area interact. Being locked into that flexed position on a bike can cause tightness and imbalances in any and all of those muscles, which can lead to significant back pain.
“But even the world’s best core strengthening program may not reduce the discomfort caused by the repetitive flexed position,” Stull says. That’s where foam rolling comes in.
Foam rolling helps relax tight muscles and break down adhesions around the musculature. Not only can that help bring the body back into better alignment and reduce muscular imbalances, but doing it after a workout can also dramatically decrease soreness up to 72 hours later, found a study published in the Journal of Athletic Training in 2015. And it can significantly improve your range of motion without any negative effects on strength (like pre-workout static stretching), according to another study from the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research published in 2013.
How to use this list: Cyclists should be foam rolling every day or at least after every ride, says Hawson. “To optimize results, use a foam roller three to four times per week,” she says. If you’re specifically suffering from postride back pain, include these seven exercises, as demonstrated by Roman Siromakha, certified personal trainer and cyclist in New York City.
If you find yourself so sore you need to foam roll all the time every day, though, Stull says there’s probably a deeper issue that needs to be addressed, and you should talk to an expert.
Join Bicycling now for the latest advice and tips!
1. Core Strengthener
Why you need it: “For all the reasons above, improving core muscle control can help address back pain and help cyclists ride stronger,” Hawson says.
How to do it: Lie faceup vertically on a foam roller with the head and tailbone supported, keeping both knees bent so feet are flat on the floor and arms are by your side. From there, tuck the pelvis so that the small of your back is resting on the foam roller and the abdominal muscles are activated. Maintain this position while raising the right hand and left knee toward the ceiling. Repeat on other side. Continue to alternate. Do 5 to 10 repetitions on each side.
2. Quadriceps Roll
Why you need it: “All cyclists rely heavily on their quadriceps to power up hills,” Stull says. “Over time, these muscles can become mechanically shortened and pull the front of the pelvis down, which alters the position of the lumbar spine. If the lumbar spine is stuck in this position too much, the muscles around the spine will become tight and could cause pain and discomfort.”
How to do it: Begin by lying facedown and placing the roller just above the knee. Use forearms to support yourself and slowly roll half way down the leg and back up. Do this 4 times. To make the roll more intense, stop half way up and perform 4 knee bends. Repeat this at the top of the leg. Then repeat on the other leg.
3. Psoas Release
Why you need it: “Due to the position a cyclist is in, the abdominal region doesn’t get the mobility and stress it needs to keep things moving,” Stull says. “So, everything just kind of gets stuck. This, in conjunction with the tight quads mentioned above, causes even more stress on the lower back, which could exacerbate problems.”
How to do it: Begin by lying facedown and supporting your upper body on your forearms. Place a massage ball just to the side of the belly button at the hip crease. Take several deep breaths and concentrate on relaxing. Shift weight side to side—if your psoas muscle is tight, you will feel the pressure. To intensify, move into a full body extension by lifting the shoulders off the ground and extending the same side leg. Hold for a breath and return to the starting position. Repeat twice. Then repeat on the other side.
4. Thoracic Spine Stretch
Why you need it: “Being hunched over on a bicycle for a long time can contribute to poor posture, which leads to back pain,” says Hawson. “Improve spinal posture by releasing tension in the upper back and restoring spinal alignment from the head, neck, and into the low back.”
How to do it: Lie faceup vertically on a foam roller with the head and tailbone supported, keeping both knees bent so feet are flat on the floor. Bring your arms out to the side like the letter T and relax. Breathe into this stretch. Hold the stretch for 30 seconds. Repeat 3 times.
[Download the All Out Studio App for more amazing at-home workouts!]
5. Lat Lengthener
Why you need it: “The latissimus dorsi are powerful extenders of the shoulders,” says Stull. “In an aerodynamic cycling position, the lats are shortened. Like most things in the human body, the lats will adapt to this position and limit your range of motion if they aren’t frequently stretched.”
How to do it: Lie on your left side with the roller under the left armpit and left arm extended overhead relaxed on the floor. Bend right knee and place right foot flat on the floor. Using the right leg, lift the hips and roll up and down through the lat muscle four times. To intensify, set the hips back down and then perform four arm sweep motions by moving the left arm across the ground. Repeat on the other side.
6. Pectoral Stretch
Why you need it: “The pectoralis minor [chest muscle] gets the bad end of the deal for cyclists for a couple of reasons: First, they’re often shortened like the lats because of that aerodynamic cycling position,” explains Stull. “Second, that rounded cycling position means the diaphragm may not be able to fully contract and relax—the pec minor is a secondary respiratory muscle that engages to assist in breathing, and over time, with hundreds of thousands of breaths, the pec minor can become shortened and dysfunctional, pulling you into a hunched position on and off the bike.”
How to do it: Lie facedown with the roller diagonal under the right chest, towards the tip of the right shoulder with right arm relaxed on the floor over the roller. Using the left arm, move the shoulder side-to-side across the roller four times. Then perform four arm sweep motions by moving the right arm across the ground. Repeat on the other side.
7. Upper Back Release
Why you need it: “Cyclists can develop a lot of muscle tightness in the upper back from holding their head up while leaning over the handlebars,” says Hawson.
How to do it: Lie with the foam roller horizontally across the upper back and place your hands behind your head. From that position, slowly dip your head back toward the floor to mobilize the thoracic spine into extension. Do 3 to 5 repetitions starting at the top, then roll down to the middle and lower parts of the upper back and repeat.
All Photos: Julia Hembree Smith
You Might Also Like
