Lower Back Pain and Core Weakness: Can Hypopressives Help You Move Pain-Free?
When Back Pain Persists Despite Exercise
If you’ve been dealing with lower back pain for a long time, you may already be doing “all the right things.” You exercise, you stretch, you stretch some more, you try to sit up straight (even writing that phrase makes me wince a little), and you’re told to strengthen your core (this is a phrase that is bandied around, but what does it actually mean? sit ups? Planks?).
Yet the pain keeps coming back, or never actually goes away.
In my studio, I see this every week. Women who are strong, capable and active, but who feel unstable through the middle or tight across the lower back. They are not lazy. They are not weak. They are often overworking.
Persistent back pain is rarely about effort or motivation. Very often, it is about how your body is coordinating breath, pressure and support.
This is where hypopressive exercises offer a different, and often relieving, perspective.
Why Strength Alone Is Not Solving Your Back Pain
Many people with lower back pain have strong muscles on paper. They can hold a plank for a minute. They’ve done Pilates, yoga, bootcamps or gym programmes designed to “fix” their core.
And yet they still feel:
Unstable through their abdominal muscles, tight or overworked in the lower back, tired from simply holding themselves upright
Strength does not automatically equal support.
Traditional ‘core’ exercises often rely on bracing. That means gripping the abdominal wall , tensing the glutes or even tucking them under during a plank, essentially holding tension to create stiffness. While this can increase short-term stability, it also increases intra-abdominal pressure and can load the lumbar spine repeatedly in a not so positive way.
If your nervous system is already under stress, or if your breathing pattern is restricted, bracing harder can increase compression rather than the coordination your body needs.
If your back pain has not improved with more effort, it does not mean you are weak. It may mean your core system is not coordinating efficiently, particularly with your breath.
Your Core Is a System, Not a Single Muscle
Your core is not just your abs- hooray I said it! It is a pressure-regulating system designed to respond automatically to load, movement and also gravity.
This system includes:
The diaphragm, your primary breathing muscle
The pelvic floor, forming the base of the system
The deep abdominal wall, especially the transverse abdominis
The multifidus and spinal stabilisers
The ribcage and thoracic spine
I would also argue for your adductors, your psoas (although it is a back stabiliser) and your glutes.
Research into lumbopelvic stability shows that in a healthy system, the diaphragm and deep abdominals anticipate movement milliseconds before your limbs move. This is reflexive. You should not have to think about it.
When this timing is disrupted, the body compensates. Often, the lower back muscles increase their activity to create stability. Over time, this constant gripping leads to fatigue, stiffness and pain.
This is why lower back pain and pelvic floor dysfunction frequently sit side by side, even if pelvic symptoms are subtle.
Why the Back Takes the Load When the Core Switches Off
Breathing patterns play a central role in spinal support.
Many people with back pain breathe predominantly into the upper chest, especially when stressed or concentrating. The lower ribs barely move. The diaphragm does not fully descend.
When diaphragm movement reduces:
The ribcage becomes rigid
The thoracic spine loses mobility
Pressure is not evenly distributed
The lumbar spine absorbs more load
Instead of pressure being managed in a balanced, three-dimensional way, it pushes downwards or forwards. The back muscles then step in to stabilise, often gripping all day long.
This is why breathing exercises for lower back pain are not simply about relaxation. They are about restoring the mechanical support system of the spine.
Creating Core Support Through Breath and Lift
Hypopressives take a very different approach to core rehabilitation. Rather than bracing or pushing pressure down, they focus on:
Managing intra-abdominal pressure
Restoring rib mobility
Improving diaphragm lift and recoil
Encouraging reflexive deep core activation
Respecting the natural curves of the spine
Encouraging natural spinal movement
In a hypopressive apnoea, the ribcage expands while the breath is gently held after an exhale. This creates a subtle lift of the diaphragm and a reflex response through the deep abdominal wall and pelvic floor.
Instead of “squeezing” your core, your body reorganises from the inside.
When combined with postural elongation, this can:
Reduce lumbar compression
Improve spinal stacking
Enhance endurance of deep support muscles
Decrease over-reliance on the lower back
The experience for many clients is not more effort, but more space.
Supporting the Spine Without Forcing the Core
So can hypopressives help with lower back pain?
For many people, yes. Especially when pain is linked to poor coordination, breath holding, or pressure overload rather than structural injury.
Hypopressives may help by:
Improving deep core timing
Reducing downward pressure through the lumbar spine
Encouraging postural ease and light activation rather than the rigidity of bracing.
Allowing superficial back muscles to offload
Support is rebuilt gradually one breath and if you are able to do them one apnoea at a time. Through alignment and breath, not through forcing intensity.
Why Bracing Harder Can Make Pain Worse
Crunches, sit-ups and long planks have the potential when not executed well to increase internal pressure and often encourage breath holding. Repeated lumbar flexion or high-load bracing can irritate already sensitive tissues. You know even that strange lumbar flexion you do when you hoover the house, screams help me from your back, or siting upright and pulling your shoulders back and now
For someone with a pressure-management issue, all of this can reinforce the problem.
Hypopressives are different. They are:
Pressure-managing rather than pressure-loading
Breath-led and nervous-system aware
Focused on reflexive support
Sometimes the first step in strengthening is learning how to reduce unnecessary tension.
After Pregnancy the Rules Change
Pregnancy alters the core system significantly.
The abdominal wall lengthens. The diaphragm position shifts. The pelvic floor adapts to load and changes position (it needs to). Pressure management changes for months.
Postnatally, many women experience:
Ongoing lower back pain
Diastasis recti
A sense of weakness or disconnection
Fear of worsening symptoms
Hypopressives are often well suited to postnatal recovery because they rebuild coordination without aggressive loading. Instead of crunching or bracing, the system is gently reorganised and prepared for greater load and training after.
This allows the back to stop compensating for a system that has not yet recalibrated. Giving everything the luxury of more time because there is an ordered recovery. Allowing tissues to adjust, scar tissue to mobilise and muscles to gradually increase load.
Why Stress Keeps Muscles Guarding
Lower back pain is rarely purely mechanical.
When the nervous system is in a heightened state of fight/flight or freeze, muscles remain in subtle contraction. The back, especially, becomes protective.
Chronic stress also reduces diaphragm excursion and increases upper chest breathing. This reinforces pressure imbalance and muscular guarding.
This is why combining hypopressives with somatic work or TRE®️ can be so wonderfully powerful. When the nervous system feels safer, muscular tone naturally reduces and coordination improves.
Pain is not always a sign of damage. Often, it is a sign of protection.
One Size Does Not Fit All Backs
Back pain has many drivers. Mobility restrictions. Pressure mismanagement. Scar tissue. Hypermobility. Stress. Previous injury.
Generic exercise programmes cannot account for all of this.
Specialist, trauma-informed guidance allows:
Individual assessment
Respect for pain signals
Gradual progression
Restoration of confidence
Your body does not need to be pushed. It needs to be listened to and fully understood.
Hypopressive Core Support in Edinburgh
Abby is a hypopressive and pelvic floor specialist, TRE®️ and Franklin Method®️ provider based in Edinburgh, supporting clients across Scotland in person and online.
Her work focuses on:
Breath-led core rehabilitation
Lower back pain and posture
Postnatal recovery
Pressure-aware movement
Trauma-informed support
If strengthening has not resolved your back pain, there may be a coordination layer missing.
Book a Hypopressive Assessment
Explore Hypopressive Teacher Training
Find Core Support in Edinburgh
Moving with Ease Starts from the Inside
Lower back pain does not mean your body is always going to feel like this. Often, it is compensating, trying hard to help you, it just has its messages mixed up.
The magic is that when breath, posture and pressure begin to work together again, the back no longer has to carry the whole system. Movement becomes easier. Stability feels quieter. Confidence returns. Strength does not always start with effort, I would argue that it never should. It starts with letting the body breathe again.
Do This Now: 3 Gentle Ways to Support Your Back Today
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Do This Now: 3 Gentle Ways to Support Your Back Today 〰️
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Lie on your back with knees bent and feet flat. Place your hands around your lower ribs.
Inhale gently through your nose and imagine your breath expanding into your side ribs and back body, not just your chest. Feel the ribcage widen slightly into your hands and the floor.
As you exhale slowly through your nose or mouth , allow your ribs to soften down. Do not brace. Simply let the breath empty.
Repeat for 6 slow breaths.
Why this helps:
This restores diaphragm movement and reduces upper chest dominance, helping redistribute pressure away from the lumbar spine. -
Stay lying down with knees bent.
As you inhale tilt your pelvis so your lower back moves away from the floor the floor creating a small curve. Then on the exhale tilt the other way so the lower back comes gently to the floor.
Move slowly between these two positions 8 to 10 times.
Let your breath guide the motion. Inhale as you rock one way. Exhale as you rock the other.
Why this helps:
This reintroduces subtle spinal movement and reduces rigid bracing. It encourages the deep system to coordinate with breath rather than lock down. -
Stand with feet hip-width apart. Soften your knees.
Imagine a thread gently lifting the crown of your head. Let your ribcage float slightly upward without flaring. Keep your jaw relaxed.
Take a calm inhale through your nose. Allow the ribs to expand gently sides and back.
Exhale gently and pause for two seconds before breathing in again.
Do this for 4 to 5 breaths.
Why this helps:
Postural elongation reduces lumbar compression. The gentle exhale pause encourages reflex engagement of the deep core without force.If these feel relieving rather than effortful, that is information.
Support does not always come from tightening harder. Sometimes it comes from creating space, restoring breath, and allowing the body to reorganise itself from the inside out.
