Gentle Back Pain Relief Exercises You Can Do at Home

Margaret is a composite client — based on several women I've worked with in the last few years, and she came to me at 67 after two years of nagging lower-back pain. Not the kind that puts you in bed; the kind that steals small pleasures. She couldn't sit through a film without shifting every few minutes. She dreaded long car journeys. Tying her shoes had become a careful operation with groans built in.

Her GP had said "try to stay active" and prescribed some painkillers. A physio gave her three exercises, which she did sporadically and then gave up on. By the time she came to me, she'd decided her back was simply "how it is now."

Eight weeks later, she was hiking a 3-mile coastal path with her grandchildren.

This is the routine that did it, plus the principles behind it, because principles travel further than a list of moves.

First: Not All Back Pain Is the Same

I have to say this up front. If your back pain is:

• Radiating down one leg with numbness or weakness
• Accompanied by bladder or bowel changes
• Worse at night and wakes you up
• The result of a recent fall or injury
• Not improving at all over 4–6 weeks

…please see a doctor or physiotherapist before starting any programme. The routine below is for the most common kind of chronic lower-back pain: muscular, postural, arising from years of weak core, tight hips, and generally not moving enough. The NHS has a clear overview of back-pain types worth reading.

Why Back Pain Is So Common After 60

Three overlapping reasons:

1. Postural drift. Decades of sitting have shortened the hip flexors and weakened the glutes and deep core. The lower back ends up doing work it wasn't designed to do.
2. Discs change. Spinal discs lose hydration and height with age, which subtly changes how the vertebrae align.
3. Muscle mass declines. Without strength training, the muscles that support the spine weaken. Harvard Health has written extensively about this cascade.

The fix is almost always not rest. It's gentle, consistent movement that wakes up the muscles that should be doing the work.

Margaret's Starting Point

Margaret's first session was humbling. She couldn't hold a simple plank on her knees for 15 seconds. Her hip flexors were locked. Her glutes fired so weakly that when I asked her to squeeze them, she had to concentrate to find them. Her pain score was 5 out of 10 on most days.

I told her: we're going to do short sessions, every day. Nothing heroic. Nothing that hurts. And we're going to be boring about it.

She laughed and said, "Boring, I can do."

The Routine (15 minutes, daily)

Do this in order. Rest 15–20 seconds between exercises. Use a mat or a folded towel if the floor is uncomfortable.

1. Cat-Cow on Hands and Knees (1 minute)

On hands and knees (or standing with hands on thighs if floor work is hard), alternate arching and rounding your spine slowly. 8 slow rounds. This is a spinal warm-up — gold standard.

2. Child's Pose or Seated Forward Fold (30 seconds)

From hands and knees, sit your hips back toward your heels, arms extended forward. If kneeling is uncomfortable, sit on a chair and fold forward over your thighs. Hold and breathe.

3. Glute Bridge (2 minutes)

Lie on your back, knees bent, feet flat. Press through your heels and lift your hips until your body is a straight line from knees to shoulders. Squeeze your glutes hard. Lower with control. 10 repetitions, 2 sets.

This is the single most important exercise in Margaret's routine. Weak glutes = overworked lower back. Strong glutes = happy back.

4. Dead Bug (2 minutes)

Lie on your back, knees bent at 90 degrees in the air, arms reaching toward the ceiling. Slowly extend your right arm overhead and your left leg toward the floor, keeping your lower back pressed into the floor. Return and switch. 8 per side.

This teaches your deep core to stabilise your spine while limbs move, which is exactly what it needs to do in daily life.

5. Bird-Dog (2 minutes)

On hands and knees, slowly extend your right arm forward and your left leg back. Hold 3 seconds. Return. Switch. 8 per side. Move as if there's a glass of water on your lower back and you mustn't spill it.

6. Supine Figure-Four Stretch (1 minute)

Lie on your back, cross your right ankle over your left thigh. Reach through and pull your left thigh toward your chest. Hold 30 seconds. Switch.

This releases the piriformis and deep hip rotators, often the real source of what feels like back pain.

7. Hip Flexor Stretch (1 minute)

Kneel on your right knee, left foot forward in a lunge (use a cushion under the knee). Keep your torso upright and gently shift your weight forward until you feel a stretch in the front of your right hip. Hold 30 seconds. Switch.

Hip flexors are the quiet villains of lower-back pain after 60. Almost everyone's are too tight.

8. Wall Sit (2 minutes)

Back against a wall, slide down until your thighs are about 45 degrees (not a full squat unless that's easy). Hold 20–30 seconds. Stand up. Repeat 3 times.

This builds quad and glute strength without any load on the spine.

9. Standing Side Bend (1 minute)

Already in our morning stretching routine — reach right arm over to the left, hold, switch. It lengthens the sides of the torso, which is surprisingly relieving for the lower back.

10. Walking (the main event)

Yes, walking is part of the back-pain prescription. 20–30 minutes a day, most days. Guidance from NIAMS (NIH) consistently shows walking reduces chronic lower-back pain more than rest does. Start with what you can, build from there. Our 30-minute walking guide has a gentle plan.

What Margaret Did Differently

Three things made the difference:

1. She did it every day. Not "most days." Every day, even 5 minutes on bad days.
2. She walked. Even when her back was cranky, she walked: slowly, but daily.
3. She strengthened her glutes. This was the open up. Once her glutes woke up, her lower back finally got to rest.

What Not to Do

• Don't avoid bending forever. Learn to hinge from your hips with a neutral spine. It's the same skill you need for picking up grandchildren safely.
• Don't do loaded crunches or sit-ups with back pain — they load the spine the wrong way. Try the dead bug and bird-dog instead.
• Don't ice it for days. Short ice for acute flare-ups is fine; chronic pain responds better to heat and movement.

When to Add Strength Training

Once your pain is under a 3/10 reliably and the exercises above feel manageable, you're ready to add broader strength work. Our strength training after 60 guide has a sensible on-ramp.

My Opinionated Take

Most back pain in women over 60 is fixable. Not every woman. Not every back. But most. The reason so many women live with it isn't that their backs are beyond help. It's that no one showed them the boring, daily, gentle things that actually work.

Fifteen minutes. Every day. Eight weeks. Try it and see.

For video-led sessions and a structured programme, have a look at our exercise guide or register for free so you can follow along week by week. Margaret's hiking the coast again. So can you.