In this instructional video, Glenn Dawson of Reset U Fitness explains how chronic lower back pain often recurs because of muscular imbalances that misalign the hips, which act as the foundation for the spine. He demonstrates a simple “broomstick squat test”—holding a household broomstick overhead and performing forward and lateral squats—to reveal whether the hips are out of alignment (the stick tilts forward). If the test fails, he prescribes three targeted stretches to restore hip balance and relieve back pain: (1) a hip‑flexor lunge with arms overhead and a rotational twist to lengthen tight hip flexors; (2) a frog/groin mobilization stretch performed on a padded surface, rocking the spine while keeping it neutral to open the hips; and (3) a glute‑hip‑capsule figure‑4 stretch performed supine, using ankle‑over‑ankle positioning and a cross‑leg hold to release the hip capsule and sciatic tension. Throughout, he emphasizes maintaining a neutral spine, engaging the core, and avoiding hyperextension. The video concludes with a call to action: viewers should bookmark the guide, use the broomstick test regularly, and seek a full muscular‑imbalance assessment either through Reset U or a local professional to prevent pain recurrence.
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If you suffer from chronic lower back pain, in this video I'm going to show you how you can use a household broomstick to identify the cause of it and 3 stretches you could do right now to give you some relief. But first, I'm Glenn Dawson with Reset U Fitness, and how we use this broomstick is to show muscular imbalances. Now, most back pain— in fact, 64 to 77% of lower back pain comes back after treatment, meaning it's If you saw the chiropractor, the physical therapist, the doctor, you got injections, took pills, most likely your lower back pain will come back. Now, the reason is because of muscular imbalances. What are muscular imbalances, you ask? That's what this squat test is going to identify. So take your household broomstick and you're going to do 3 simple squats just like this. Hold the broomstick above your head with 90-degree angles and then squat 3 times to the front, and 3 to the side. Now, if the broomstick goes forward at all, I mean, if there's a cup of water on here and it tilts forward and splashes you in the head just like this, then that means that your lower back pain is most likely coming from a hip problem, meaning your hips are out of alignment. And think about it, break it down. Your hips are basically like the foundation of your spine. If this is my hips and this is my spine, almost like a foundation for a skyscraper, the hips are out of alignment. So is the spine. Spine's carrying a lot more weight than it needs to. The spine isn't supposed to be this huge load-bearing area. That's your glutes, your hamstring, these big thick muscles around your pelvis. And when one of those is too dominant, it pulls your hips out of alignment. Like, for instance, if you're constantly sitting at at the keyboard one day, your quads get really tight, your hip flexors get really tight, and you start to tilt your pelvis down and forward, and then you have lower back pain. So if you are dealing with chronic lower back pain, do these 3 stretches to relieve symptoms, quotation mark, symptoms of lower back pain. The first stretch I want you to do is a hip flexor lunge stretch. Now your hip flexor is a group of muscles that goes in front of the hip. So imagine they wrap around the backside of your hip and then go down. Now, when you sit in a chair for a long period of time, this gets really tight and tilts the pelvis forward and causes a lot of lower back pain. Most Americans have this problem. To stretch it, you want to go into a lunge with two 90-degree angles, put your arms above your head, and then drop your pelvis down and forward without extending backwards like you're doing a yoga pose. That can cause more discomfort in your lower back. You don't want that. So tighten your abs, keep your spine perpendicular to the ground so that no matter how far you go forward, the spine stays straight. And after about 30 seconds of this, while breathing, twist and rotate over the front leg. Now, this is going to open up the hip flexor even more. Obviously, once you've done that, switch sides and do the opposite side because you don't want to be imbalanced. And then stretch. After 30 seconds of this side, move on to stretch number 2. Now the second stretch is a frog stretch. To set this one up, make sure you have a padded area, well padded. There's not a lot of padding here on your knees. We're going to open up your hips, your groin, and reprogram your spine to stay straight. So get into a nice little groin stretch here, a little tripod with 2 points here, and then your elbows is the 3rd point. From here, you're going to rock back and forth. If you don't have a fancy Lululemon mat like I have— I'm actually stealing this from my wife who's filming the video— if you don't have a mat like this, it's okay. Decorative pillows will work too. And if you have a wife like mine, I'm sure you have a wide variety of decorative pillows. Now, when you set this up from the side view, again, you're going to want to keep the spine straight and neutral. You want to do about 10 reps moving your spine back and forth, and don't hyperextend or go too far down or round at any point. Keep those abs tight and go back and forth and just let your hips loosen up. After about 10 of these, you should feel a lot of relief. Move on to the third and final stretch. This last one, we're going to work the hip capsule. So a lot of times this glute hip capsule area will get really tight and send zingers or sciatic pain down your leg. We're going to work on that now. The easiest way to set it up, because most people have really tight hip capsules, is to lay one leg over the other. So lay down, lay one ankle on top of the leg and let it lay flat. This is the beginning. Now, if this leg doesn't go parallel to the ground, say it's like this and it's really, really tight, That's an indicator that we found the exact right spot that you need to stretch. From here, you want to bring the other ankle up. This is going to provide a small stretch here in the glute hip capsule area. If this isn't a good enough stretch for you, move to the next one. Take your arms and stick them through this little triangle I've built and go into your figure 4 stretch and hold this cross-legged glute stretch here for at least 90 seconds. Once you've done 90 seconds, go ahead and switch and stretch the other side. As you're doing this, keep your spine on the ground at all times. This shouldn't cause you any discomfort, or you're probably overstretching if it is. After that, we have successfully mobilized your hips. Now that you've stretched your hips, you're probably moving much better. You probably walk a little better, feel a lot better. Make sure you bookmark this video and share it so you can use it again later. This broomstick test, if you failed it, I got news for you. Mobilizing your hips is going to help you and it's going to relieve back pain. But those dominant muscles that pulled your hips out of alignment are the same reason why you have to keep going back to the chiropractor, keep going back to the physical therapist. So if you haven't had an assessment, we actually offer one at ResetU. So go to ResetU.com right now, grab your broomstick, use it and go get your body reset fully so the pain doesn't have to come back. If you're not going to do that, go see somebody locally in person. Either way, get an assessment, a full assessment on your muscular imbalances so you can fix the problem for good. Thank you.
