, vice-chair, Division of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation and Pain Management at Miami Neuroscience Institute's Spine Center. "Stretching can help relieve lower back pain by improving the range of motion of the spine," explains Christine Villoch, M.D. Thankfully, there's an easy way to help relieve or prevent that stiffness in your back: by regularly stretching your lower back. "As one gets older, back pain might stem from joint stiffness and arthritis as well as from stenosis - a narrowing of the spinal cord canal." Other common causes of lower back pain include myofascial pain (a chronic pain deep within muscle tissue ) and disc herniation. "In a young and healthy person, back pain can happen from sitting too long and/or inactivity due to muscle shortening," says Theresa Marko, PT, DPT, MS, a board-certified orthopedic physical therapy specialist based in New York City.
Suffering from lower back pain? You're not alone - according to the Cleveland Clinic, approximately four out of five people have lower back pain at some point in their lives.