Back pain: Five simple exercises you can do to prevent it

Back pain affects one in six Aussies. But if you want to try to prevent it, these are five exercises you can do three times a week at home.

“Uncle Johnny can’t come to the beach today, he’s done his back.”

That was the cry I heard before a family get-together this summer.

I’m a physiotherapist and whether in the clinic or at home, I always try to guide my patients to what can be done to prevent episodes like these.

So what’s the best thing you can do to avoid back pain?

The answer here is simple – move your back and build your muscles, consistently.

While this is generally agreed across the medical profession, what’s not so widely agreed is the best way to go about it.

Yoga or pilates? Lifting weights or body weight?

For 15 years I worked solely with strength training equipment, which in my opinion did a wonderful job of building strength and resilience.

But what if you don’t have time?

Or a realistic concern in 2025 would be, what if you don’t have the money?

Here are the five exercises I would recommend for you to do, three times a week at home, to prevent back pain.

As a physiotherapist, it is important to acknowledge that these are not a silver bullet, and it won’t prevent all your back pain, but movement and strength are our best defence.

Bending

I can’t say this enough, this is not a stretch. Research has shown that stretching is unlikely to prevent injuries and we recommended it much less than we did 10 years ago. The purpose of this exercise is simply to get your back moving, to ensure that the joints, the ligaments, the tendons, the discs and all their relevant sensors are put to use regularly. Just as we no longer recommend ‘keep your spine straight’ when lifting things off the ground, we no longer recommend you keep your spine straight on a day-to-day basis. Use it or lose it.

Start with your hands on your thighs and slowly lower them to the ground, allowing your spine to bend. Move slowly and DON’T try to move as far as you can, just move comfortably down, then back to your starting position.

Squat

Using all the major muscle groups of your legs, as well as the muscles of your lower back, the squat should be part of most exercise regimes.

The best way to learn to squat properly is to pretend you are sitting down on a chair. Start standing, slowly bend your knees and push your bottom back toward a chair. This will reduce load on your knee and increase the work done by your large gluteal muscles.

Superman

Most people think about their abdominal muscles when they think of core strength, but it makes sense that your back is best protected by your lower back muscles.

Start on all fours. Slowly extend your right arm out in front of you and your left leg behind you at the same time. This will challenge both your balance and your strength.

Hip abduction

Your gluteal muscles form an important part of your core and the muscles that control your side movement, like your gluteus medius, are particularly important. These are the muscles Tiger Woods made famous in 2015 when he said ‘my glutes won’t activate’.

To strengthen your gluts, hold the back of a chair and stand on one leg, then raise the other leg out to the side. Don’t raise it as high as you can, you’ll move your upper body too much, keep the movement to your hip join. This might seem simple at first, so if it does, check that your upper body isn’t moving at all and then check that your leg is moving to the side or back and not coming forward.

Dead bug

Your abdominals are an important part of your core and an important part of dealing with back pain, just not the ONLY important muscle as many suggested 10-15 years ago.

To start, assume the dead bug position. For those who don’t know that’s lying on your back with all limbs in the air, knees bent at 90 degrees. This is the opposite of the Superman exercise, meaning you lower your right arm and left leg at the same time, then bring them back to the start and alternate. To make this one harder, hold a weight in your hands (drink bottle or bottle of laundry liquid)

Guidelines for exercise:

Do two sets of 10 of each exercise. Less is more!

Consistency is the key. Don’t focus on how much you can do today, the key here is how much are you consistently doing for the next 12 months. That’s why this only takes 10 minutes and you only need to do this three times per week.

Move smoothly, speed is your enemy. Particularly at the change of direction of each exercise, focus on not using momentum and not bouncing, rather moving smoothly and feeling your muscles and joints.

To make it harder, move slower. Moving slower reduces momentum and makes the movement harder. In the squat for example, try moving down for 10 seconds up and up for 10 seconds. Very few people will find a slow squat like this easy.

If you’ve already got pain, rather than seeing a GP, get advice from a physiotherapist or exercise physiologist – this is their area of expertise.

Tim Dettmann is a physiotherapist and the former director of Kieser Australia. He is a guest lecturer at the University of Melbourne and an industry fellow at Swinburne University of Technology.

Readers should consult their GP or physio before starting any exercise program. The above are suggestions that might be considered in consultation with a medical professional.

Originally published as Back pain: Five simple exercises you can do to prevent it