Beginner roller skating
A Stiff Lower Back After Skating May Be Your Sides
The place that aches is not always the place at fault. A certified coach points at the side body — the muscles down the flanks that are hard to reach and easy to ignore — and says that weakness or tightness there can contribute to lower back pain. Which means the useful thing to stretch after a long skate may not be your back at all. Technique from ICP-certified coach Asha Kirkby.
The place that aches is not always the place at fault, and a stiff lower back after a long skate is one of the clearest examples of it.
A certified coach points at the side body — the muscles running down your flanks, hard to reach and easy to ignore — and says that weakness or tightness there can contribute to lower back pain.
Which changes what is worth stretching. If the sides are involved, the useful work after a long session may not be aimed at your back at all, and the back stretches you already do may be treating a symptom.
It is worth saying what this is not. It is a coach's observation across a lot of skaters, not a diagnosis of your back. A pain that keeps coming back, or that arrives without skating, is a question for someone qualified to answer it.
Technique from Asha Kirkby of Skatefresh, an instructor certified by the Inline Certification Program. She teaches inline skating, and that is the discipline this page is about.
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