I had lower back pain — until I started training

Before I went back to the gym, I had a bad relationship with mornings. I would get out of bed stiff, with a sharp, nagging ache low down in my back — right across the lower spine, in the sacral area. Not an injury exactly, just a body that had seized up overnight and complained every time I stood up.

It is largely gone now. On most mornings I do not think about my lower back at all, which two years ago would have seemed like a small miracle. Training is the reason. But how it happened is more honest — and more useful to you — than the usual "do these five exercises and your pain will vanish" story.

There were two things I did deliberately, because I knew they were meant to be good for the lower back and I wanted to look after it.

The plank was the main one. I held it as a genuine exercise for the back — bracing the whole middle of the body, nothing fancy, just holding the position. And the cat-cow: on all fours, arching and rounding the spine slowly, the way a cat stretches. Those two I chose specifically with my back in mind. They were my repair work, the bit I did with intent.

I am not going to oversell them. They were not a magic cure and they did not work overnight. But they were gentle, they cost nothing, and they were the part of this where I was actually trying to help my back rather than stumbling into it.

Here is the honest bit that most articles leave out. Alongside the plank and the cat-cow, I was training generally — because I wanted to train, because I had the urge to, not because I was treating anything. And a lot of that training happened to involve the lower back without me thinking about it.

The deadlift is the obvious one. I did it with fairly light weight, but the deadlift works the whole back of the body, the lower spine included. I was not doing it as back therapy — I was doing it because it is a good lift and I wanted to. Same with plenty of other movements: they quietly loaded and strengthened the lower back as a side effect of me just training.

So the real story is two things running side by side: a small amount of deliberate care, and a much larger amount of ordinary training that strengthened my lower back as a bonus I had not planned. The second part is honestly the one that surprised me.

This is the part I most want to be honest about, because it is the opposite of how these stories are usually sold.

I did not track my back pain. I did not keep a diary and tick off improvements week by week. I was just training, for months, thinking about lifts and food and getting stronger — not about my spine. And then at some point I realised, almost in passing, that the mornings had stopped being bad. The stiffness and the ache had faded away while I was not paying attention.

It was gradual. Not a switch that flipped, but a slow fade over several months — and probably some of it came earlier than I registered, because I genuinely was not keeping score. That slowness matters, because it is the opposite of what people hope for. There was no quick fix. There was just months of showing up, and one day the pain was not there any more.

I should clear something up, because I have written elsewhere about coming back after spinal surgery, and I do not want to muddle the two.

My surgery was in my neck — the cervical spine, at the C5-C6 level — and it had nothing to do with this. It was not caused by physical work; back then I worked as a service engineer, mostly at a desk, in the car, a bit at the customer's site. Different part of the spine, different cause, different story entirely. The lower-back ache in this article is a completely separate thing, and I do not want anyone reading this to think strengthening exercises are what you do about a serious spinal problem. They are not. That is exactly the kind of situation where you need a professional, not a stranger's website.

If your lower back aches in the mornings the way mine did, here is the honest version of what I can offer — which is not a treatment plan, because I am not qualified to give you one.

• Get it checked first. Really. Back pain has many causes and some need a doctor, not a gym. Mine turned out to be the kind that strengthening helped — yours might not be, and there is no way for you or me to know that from here.
• A strong back tends to be a happier back. In my case, the muscles around the lower spine getting stronger — on purpose and by accident — is what seems to have done it. That lines up with what physios often say, but they say it after examining you.
• Do not expect it fast. Mine took months and I only noticed in hindsight. If you are chasing an overnight fix you will quit before the slow one arrives.
• Gentle and consistent beat hard and sporadic. Light weights, held positions, showing up regularly. I never went heavy or forced it, especially early on.

• See someone real first. Back pain is not a thing to self-diagnose off a website. Mine responded to training; that is not a promise that yours will, and some backs must not be loaded at all.
• A lot of it was accidental. I did plank and cat-cow on purpose, but the ordinary training — deadlifts and the rest — strengthened my lower back without me trying. Just training well may do more than any special routine.
• It is slow, and you notice late. Mine faded over months and I only clocked it in hindsight. Do not wait for a dramatic moment — there isn't one. There is just consistency, and one day the ache is gone.