I've had killer back pain for quite a while now, so I thought I'd show you a short sequence for relieving tension and pain in the back. This post is dedicated to you Harriet, I hope you find it useful :-)
Rather than just illustrating one pose, I've recorded a short sequence that lasts about 13 minutes. I've had to keep it short for recording purposes, but I recommend you take your time, and particularly at the end, spend at least 10 minutes in Savasana (corpse pose).
We're going to warm up the back with a few cat-cows, then we'll do a spinal twist that works the upper part of the back, especially around the shoulder blades. After this we'll transition into downward-facing dog (adho mukha svanasana) and do some exercises to stretch our calf muscles and the sides of our backs. If your arms get tired in down dog, by all means take a breather in child's pose. I'll show you a couple of tips for making child's pose more comfortable too. We'll be ending the class with a restorative yoga pose. It's another spinal twist, but this one works your lower back instead of your upper back, and can also work you neck if you take the more advanced option shown. However, BEWARE! The neck twist is very advanced and is contraindicated in case of arthritis or any other kind of neck problem. I'll show you how to do it, but I personally find it uncomfortable. Remember, you should never feel pain or severe discomfort when doing yoga. Listen to your body at all times, it's very wise and will warn you when to stop. After the spinal twist, we'll end in savasana. I'll show you standard savasana, and savasana for people with lower back problems. Please feel free to contact me if you have any queries.
N.B: I had to reduce the quality of the video as the file size was too big for Wix to handle. I hope the quality is still good enough!