Lower back

What these work on

These practices work the lower back as a neighbourhood rather than a single muscle. Hips, glutes, and the long muscles either side of the spine all get a turn, because most of what reads as a stiff back involves all of them.

One thing worth knowing about timing. The spine takes on fluid overnight, and in the first hour after you get up it bends forward less happily than it will later in the day. Deep forward folds are better saved for the afternoon or evening, and the morning practices here stay away from them on purpose.

Sitting gets blamed for a lot. Long-running studies do not support the idea that sitting causes back trouble, though it does track with feeling worse day to day. What these offer is more ordinary and more honest: range, and less of the tension that builds when you hold one shape for hours.

If something is sharp, radiating, or simply not improving, that belongs with a clinician rather than an app.