Yoga for tight hips and a stiff lower back

This is a twenty minute sequence for tight hips and a stiff lower back: eleven items in a fixed order, done on a mat, at any time of day. It pairs the two on purpose, because in the hall they arrive together far more often than separately, and because a stiff lower back is very frequently a pair of hips that have stopped moving and a back that is doing their work for them.

It is for the person who wakes stiff and loosens up by ten o'clock, the person who cannot sit cross legged on the floor at a family function, and the person whose back aches after an hour in a chair or a car. Level beginner, and everything in it is supported or has a smaller version.

It is not for an acute injury. If your back went two days ago, if the pain runs down a leg past the knee, if there is any numbness or weakness in a foot, or if the pain woke you in the night, this is not the page you need: see a doctor, and read the back pain page, which is written for that situation with the appropriate care.

What you need: a mat, a folded blanket for the back knee and for sitting on, one or two cushions, and a rolled blanket for under the knees at the end. Props are not optional in this sequence. Half of what makes these positions work on a stiff body is that something is holding you up while you stop trying.

The reason is mechanical and it is worth understanding, because it changes how you practise rather than only what you practise.

The pelvis sits between the hips and the lumbar spine, and it can only be in one position at a time. When the front of the hip is short, from years of sitting, the pelvis is pulled into a tilt and the lower back holds a deeper curve than it wants to, all day. When the back of the hip and the outer buttock are tight, the pelvis cannot rotate freely, so every time you bend to pick something up, the movement that should have happened at the hip happens between two vertebrae instead. Neither of those is an injury. Both of them are a back doing a hip's job.

That is why this sequence spends its first eight minutes on hips and its last five on the back, rather than the other way round, and it is why there are two items nobody expects. Gomukhasana legs, for the outer hip and the side of the buttock, which is the tight spot most home routines miss entirely. And Setu Bandhasana, a low bridge, which is not a stretch at all: it is strength work for the buttocks and the backs of the thighs. A stiff lower back is very often a weak backside, and stretching alone will not touch that.

The other consequence is a rule about the forward folds in this sequence: both of them are done with a bent knee and a long back. If your hamstrings are tight and you insist on straight legs, the fold has to come from the lumbar spine, and folding repeatedly from a stiff lower back is how a stretching routine makes a back worse.

The order runs warm the spine, open the front of the hip, open the hip in every other direction, then unwind, then strengthen, then rest. It is not a list of stretches arranged by convenience.

Cat and cow is first and it is not a warm up in the casual sense. Two minutes of moving a stiff lumbar spine through its own small range, with no load on it, is what makes the next eighteen minutes safe. I would rather somebody did two minutes of item one and nothing else than the last nine items on a cold back.

The lunge is third, immediately after the child's pose, because the front of the hip is the tightest thing in a sitting body and because everything after it is easier once it has moved. Ninety seconds a side is deliberate: thirty seconds in a hip flexor does very little on a body that has been in a chair for eleven hours.

The squat and the wide knee sitting come next because they open the hip in different directions, and both need the front of the hip to have gone first. The outer hip work follows, at item six, because it is the least comfortable item in the sequence and it goes best on a hip that is already warm.

Then the sequence changes character. The lying twist unwinds everything, the bridge adds the strength, and the last forward fold is short and supported rather than long and ambitious. Makarasana at item ten, lying face down, is there because it lets a lower back that has just been worked settle in a position with no pull on it at all, and it is an old position that has fallen out of fashion for no good reason. Then two minutes on the back with the knees supported.

Print this and put it where you keep the mat. Twenty minutes, eleven items, in this order.

1. Marjariasana, 2 minutes. Fifteen slow rounds, tailbone first.
2. Balasana, 1 minute. Knees wide, forehead down, six breaths.
3. Ashwa Sanchalanasana, 3 minutes. Ninety seconds a side, back knee on a blanket.
4. Malasana, 90 seconds. Heels on a blanket, elbows inside the knees, or a stool.
5. Baddha Konasana, 2 minutes. Cushion under each knee, no pressing down.
6. Gomukhasana legs, 2 minutes. One minute a side, sitting up on a blanket.
7. Supta Matsyendrasana, 2 minutes 30. Seventy five seconds a side, shoulders down.
8. Setu Bandhasana, 90 seconds. Three low lifts of five breaths. Strength, not stretch.
9. Janu Sirsasana, 90 seconds. Forty five seconds a side, knee bent, cushion on the thigh.
10. Makarasana, 1 minute. Face down, forehead on the hands, feet turned out.
11. Savasana, 2 minutes. Rolled blanket under the knees, palms up.

Two useful shortenings. On a bad day, do items 1, 2, 3, 7 and 11, which is nine minutes and keeps the two that matter most. On a day with more time, add three minutes to item 3 and two to item 7 rather than adding new positions.

Do this daily if you can. Hips and a stiff lower back respond to frequency far more than to duration, and twenty minutes six days a week will do more than an hour twice, which is also the argument in how often you should do yoga.

A printable one page PDF of this plan is being prepared and is not linked yet. It will be a plain download when it exists.

A back that is stiff rather than injured is easy to make sore, and these are the six ways people do it.

• Do not press the knees down in the wide knee sitting. Not with the hands, not with the elbows, not by asking somebody else to. The inner thigh gives when it is left alone and it protests when it is pushed, and the protest arrives the next day.
• Do not straighten the legs in either forward fold. Knees bent, back long, cushion on the thigh. Folding from a stiff lumbar spine with locked knees is the single commonest way a stretching routine makes a back worse.
• Do not pull yourself round with the hand in the lying twist. Let the weight of the legs take you and stop where it stops. Both shoulders stay down: if one lifts, you have gone past your range.
• Do not lift the bridge high. Low, and squeezing the buttocks. A high bridge on a stiff back becomes a back bend, which is not what the item is for.
• Do not skip the blanket under the back knee in the lunge. Three minutes on a hard floor is enough to leave a bruise, and the discomfort makes people rush the one item that matters most.
• Do not hold anything to the point of gritting your teeth. A stretch that you are enduring has stopped being a stretch. Come back to the edge where you can breathe evenly, and stay there.

Stop the sequence and get medical advice, rather than modifying it, if there is pain running down a leg past the knee, any numbness or weakness in a foot, pain that woke you in the night, or pain following a fall. Leave out the squat with a knee replacement or a meniscus problem and use a stool. Leave out the twist in pregnancy after the first trimester. If you have high blood pressure that is not controlled, keep the head above the heart throughout, which in this sequence means only the child's pose needs changing.

Low back pain is one of the few areas where yoga has been tested repeatedly, and the honest summary is that it works about as well as the other things that work, which is a modest amount.

A meta-analysis of eight randomised controlled trials in 743 patients with chronic low back pain found medium to large effects for functional disability and for pain immediately after treatment, and smaller but still significant effects at follow up. A randomised clinical trial of twelve weeks of virtual yoga classes in 140 adults with chronic low back pain, published in JAMA Network Open, found pain down by an average of 1.5 points on an eleven point scale and back related function improved by 2.8 points on the Roland Morris questionnaire, along with 21 percentage points less use of pain medication and better sleep, with the gains holding at twenty four weeks.

The tempering fact is worth stating too. In an editorial accompanying a trial that compared yoga with physical therapy and with education, the authors noted that yoga proved no worse than physical therapy but that the gains were modest, with only 48 per cent of the yoga participants reaching a clinically meaningful improvement at twelve weeks. Yoga is one tool among several, not a cure, and the trials that show benefit ran for twelve weeks rather than a fortnight.

What none of that measures is this particular twenty minute sequence, and I will not pretend otherwise. My own claim is narrower and is based on watching stiff backs in a hall for forty years: the people who get better are the ones who do a short practice daily and who add the strength work rather than only stretching. The bridge is in this sequence for that reason, and it is the same reasoning behind the routine for beginners over 40.

If the floor is difficult. Six of these eleven items have a chair version and the chair yoga sequence covers the hips and the spine with nothing done on the floor. It is the right substitution for anybody who cannot get down and up, and the seated twist and the sit to stand in it do a surprising amount of this work.

To make it easier. Hands on a low stool in the lunge so the chest is more upright, a stool instead of the squat, two cushions under each knee in the wide knee sitting, one leg at a time and a strap in place of the Gomukhasana legs if the knees will not stack, and a bolster under the hips in the bridge so that it becomes a supported rest. That version runs to about eighteen minutes.

To make it more. Lengthen rather than add: two minutes a side in the lunge, ninety seconds a side in the twist, three minutes in the wide knee sitting. That takes it to about twenty six minutes and it is a better use of the extra six than any new posture would be, and holding for minutes rather than seconds is the whole idea behind yin yoga. The one addition I would make is five more bridge lifts, because strength is the part most people are short of.

If you sit all day, which is most people reading this, add the eight minute desk sequence in the middle of the working day and do this one in the evening. The hips respond to being interrupted more than to being stretched hard once.

Six days a week for four weeks, from what students report.

Week one. The lunge is uncomfortable and the outer hip item is worse. Nothing has changed yet and the temptation to push is strongest here, which is exactly when the ninety second holds matter.

Week two. The squat is the first visible marker. People who started on a stool are often on a folded blanket. Morning stiffness usually shortens: it is not gone, it just clears by eight instead of by ten.

Week three. Bending to pick something off the floor feels different, and this is the change that matters most in real life. It is the hips taking the movement back off the lower back, which is what the whole sequence is for.

Week four onwards. The lying twist reaches further with less effort and the bridge starts to feel like work rather than like a rest, which means the buttocks have begun to do something. Sitting for an hour is more comfortable than it was, and this is the point at which a fuller practice such as the twenty minute morning routine becomes worth adding.

What does not change in a month: an old back does not become a young one, the stiffness comes back after a long drive or a bad mattress and will do for years, and the trials that show real improvement in chronic low back pain ran for twelve weeks rather than four. If you want the honest timescale, think in terms of three months, and think of this as something you do rather than something you complete. A live online class is worth having in the first fortnight so that somebody can tell you whether your fold is coming from the hip or the lumbar spine, because that is very difficult to judge from inside your own body.

What each item is doing here, which is not always what it is best known for. The full teaching on each is on its own pose page, linked from the table above.

1. Marjariasana, 2 minutes

Fifteen slow rounds of cat and cow, moving the lumbar spine through its own range with no load. This is the safety item and the one to keep on the worst day.

2. Balasana, 1 minute

Knees wide so the belly has room and the lower back can lengthen. Six breaths, and a rest for the wrists before the lunge.

3. Ashwa Sanchalanasana, 3 minutes

The front of the back hip, ninety seconds a side, back knee on a blanket, hips pressing gently forward. The most important item on this page for a stiff lower back.

4. Malasana, 90 seconds

The squat: the deep hip and the whole of the lower back at once. Heels supported. A low stool with the feet wide is a complete version of this item.

5. Baddha Konasana, 2 minutes

The inner thigh and the groin, sitting up on a blanket with a cushion under each knee. Left alone rather than pushed.

6. Gomukhasana legs, 2 minutes

The outer hip and the side of the buttock, which is the tight spot most routines miss and which very often lies behind a back that will not turn. One minute a side, and a strap and one leg at a time if the knees will not stack.

7. Supta Matsyendrasana, 2 minutes 30

The lying twist that unwinds the six items before it and settles the lower back. Weight of the legs only, both shoulders down.

8. Setu Bandhasana, 90 seconds

Not a stretch. Three low lifts of five breaths for the buttocks and the backs of the thighs, because a stiff lower back is frequently a weak backside.

9. Janu Sirsasana, 90 seconds

One hamstring at a time, knee bent, cushion on the thigh, folding from the hip. Short and supported on purpose.

10. Makarasana, 1 minute

Lying face down, forehead on stacked hands, feet turned out. A position with no pull on the lower back at all, which is why it comes after the work rather than before it.

11. Savasana, 2 minutes

On the back with a rolled blanket under the knees, which takes the last of the pull off the lumbar spine. Two minutes, then roll to one side to get up.