Why your lower back hurts from sitting - and how to undo it

If your lower back aches by the end of a working day, you are not imagining it. Sitting loads the spine more than standing, and most of us do it for eight hours or more, often hunched toward a screen.

When you sit, the discs between your vertebrae are compressed and the muscles that support the spine switch off. The hip flexors at the front of the body shorten, pulling the pelvis out of position. Over weeks and months this becomes the stiffness and dull ache so many desk workers know.

Pain is rarely about weakness alone. It is about load that never gets released.

Gravity Stretching reverses that load. Hanging in suspension straps lets the spine lengthen instead of compress, opening the space between the vertebrae and giving the discs room to breathe.

Most people stand up after a session feeling taller and lighter, because the pressure that built up over the day has been released.

You do not need to be flexible or fit. The first level is supported and slow. The goal is relief first, mobility next, and a practice you can return to whenever desk life catches up with you.