One of the common stretches you are told to do for back pain relief is your hamstrings. And you are right in assuming that these will help relieve back pain. There are a few problems though.

First … your hamstrings are the muscle that attaches into the base of your buttock on your sitting bone. They then stretch to just below your knee. You use the muscles when walking and it is a major player in pelvic stability and hence lower back pain.

There are numerous ways to stretch the hamstring and if you want to see a few, go over to Spine Health as they have a great article on numerous ways to stretch the Hamstrings.

As to the question on whether hamstring stretches help with back pain relief. They do if you do the stretch properly.

What do I mean by this? First, you should look at the article from Spine Health about the way to stretch, pick any method, but make sure you do the following:

1.    Make sure your foot points upwards in a straight line. If you turn your foot, you actually engage a different part of your hamstring. The muscle has many fibers and if you turn your foot you only target certain areas of the muscle. If your foot is straight you actually will stretch the entire muscle.
2.    Make sure your back is straight and your pelvis “tucked” in. This also helps to engage the hamstrings and you will find you can actually stretch the muscle better. You may also find you can’t bend as far, which means it is actually tighter than you thought.
3.    Only stretch until you feel the muscle tighten. Do not stretch to a point of pain. If you make it painful your muscle will contract, which is exactly the opposite to what you want it to do. You want the muscle to relax, if you traumatize it, it won’t relax.
4.    Rest the muscle after you stretch. If you stretch and then relax the muscle will get accustomed to the relaxed manner. This way the muscle is more likely to remain is a less tense state.

Follow these simple rules and you will find your hamstring stretches are more effective and quicker at back pain relief. Stretching is part of an approach in relieving back pain. You should still look at getting joints moving better and speeding your healing and recovery rates. Then back pain can disappear quickly and easily.