We’ve all been there, we’re driving or are the passengers of a multiple hour car ride for a summer vacation and you have to pull off the highway to fill up. You get out of the car to take those first steps and you feel like your back hasn’t moved in years. How can you prevent stiffness from occurring if you can’t get up and move around while in the car? Here are some things you can try to prevent that stiffness from annoying you on your trip! 

Preventing Stiffness: 

• Changing Positions: Joints can get fixated with lack of movement. If you stay in one position for so long this can cause them to become stiff, keep changing positions while you are in the car and keep those joints moving. 

• Pelvic Tilt Exercises: When we sit in a car we tend to have our pelvis tilted backwards, because it correlates with the low back being in a flexed position. Tilting your pelvis repetitively in a forward motion (opposite of how one regularly sits in a car) can prevent the joints in the low back from becoming stiff. Try doing these exercises for 10 reps every 15-30 minutes. 

• Changing Your Most Common Position: If you’re not good with remembering exercises or changing positions, this could be your alternative. Placing a rolled up towel, blanket, or another soft object behind your low back off and on throughout your trip will be putting you into extension rather than flexion the entire time. You wouldn’t have to worry about exercises or needing to change your position while on your trip!

Relieving Stiffness 

• End-Range Loading Extension Exercise: If you get out of the car and your low back is still feeling stiff, place your hands at the bottom of your low back and lean back while pushing your hands forward. Once you lean back as far as you can go, exhale a breath to have the low back sink a little bit farther into extension then return to neutral. Do this for 10-20 reps once you get out of the car to get those low back joints moving again!

  Try these tips on your next long car ride and enjoy your trip more. As always, if you’re still having pain after your trip, come in and see us at Focus On Health!