Reducing low back pain may be as simple as donning your comfortable shoes and going for a walk every day.
Norwegian researchers have found that walking 100 minutes a day can reduce your risk of chronic back pain by nearly a quarter, regardless of the speed at which you walk.
How Long You Walk Matters
In a study published in JAMA Open Network in June, researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology analyzed data from the Trondelag Health Study in Norway, which followed more than 11,000 adults for four years.
The results showed that those who walked 78 to 100 minutes per day had a 13 percent lower risk of chronic low back pain compared with those who walked less than 78 minutes. What’s more—walking 125 minutes or more per day cut the risk by 23 percent.
“Volume is the most important thing,” Jon Ide-Don, a physical therapist and director of clinical programs for MedBridge, told The Epoch Times. You don’t need to worry about speed or heart rate, he said. “Just get out the door and start to walk or even walk on a treadmill or do anything that’s available to you.”
Speed helped, too, but not as much as total time. The study found that brisk walking offered protection, but when researchers analyzed both time and speed together, walking duration remained the key factor while the benefits of walking faster largely disappeared.
Compared with light strolling at about 2 mph, walking at about 3 mph lowered risk by 15 percent, and brisk walking, which is about 3 1/2 mph to 4 mph, offered similar protection.
“Whether it’s taking short bouts of walking several times a day or going for one long walk, the total walking time seems to be what helps reduce or prevent chronic low back pain,” Ide-Don said.
The benefits level off after about 100 minutes, meaning extra walking still helps but offers smaller returns—making 100 minutes the sweet spot for back pain prevention.
Even after accounting for factors such as pain, chronic disease, and body mass index, the protective effect of walking remained—though slightly weaker—suggesting that some of the benefit is because healthier people tend to walk more.
Why Walking Works Wonders for Your Back
Walking is more than good exercise—it’s specifically therapeutic for your spine. Here’s how it helps:
Physical Benefits
Walking specifically helps your back by strengthening core and postural muscles, improving blood flow to spinal tissues, and counteracting stiffness from sitting too long. It can also help manage weight, which reduces pressure on the spine.
“Movement reduces the risk of back pain in several ways,” Gavin Williams, a physical therapist and health writer for fitness and wellness brands, told The Epoch Times. “It increases circulation, maintains muscle mass, supports a healthier neuromuscular system, and helps keep ligaments and tendons supple.”
Neurological Reset
Walking can help “reset” the nervous system, calming an oversensitive brain and spinal cord that may keep sending pain signals even without injury, Ide-Don said. It retrains the body to see movement as safe, rather than threatening, and breaks up long periods of sitting.
Mood and Pain Relief
Like other aerobic exercise, walking releases endorphins—your body’s natural “feel-good” hormones—which boost mood and help ease pain.
The Sitting Problem
Ide-Don emphasized the importance of moving throughout the day. Sitting isn’t bad on its own, he noted, but long, uninterrupted stretches—four to five hours at a time or 12 hours total—should be broken up with movement.
Sitting places the greatest load on the spine compared with standing and lying down, which may explain why long bouts of sitting are a strong risk factor for low back pain, Williams added.
Prolonged sitting is also linked to obesity, diabetes, heart problems, and cancer.
A 2024 UK Biobank study involving more than 365,000 people found that replacing just one hour of sitting a day with physical activity cut back-pain risk by 2 to 8 percent.
A 2019 review of cohort studies found that more active people—regardless of how they spread out their activity—had about a 10 percent lower risk of lower back pain.
Taken together, the evidence shows that any movement matters—and combining enough time with a bit of intensity brings the greatest health gains. That is why public health guidelines recommend at least 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity per week, blending both time and effort.
Practical Tips for Getting Your 100 Minutes
The key to reaching 100 minutes a day is making walking fit naturally into your routine. Research shows that habits stick better when tied to existing behaviors, such as walking after meals, taking calls on the go, and swapping short car trips for a stroll.
Ide-Don recommends starting with a goal you’re confident you can meet most days. “If you’re 80 to 90 percent confident you can walk for 15 minutes twice a day, that’s an excellent starting point,” he said.
To help the habit stick:
- Plan Ahead: Decide when and where you’ll walk, anticipate obstacles, and have a backup plan.
- Use Cues and Reminders: Keep your shoes by the door, set a calendar alert, or link your walk to something you already do—such as after eating breakfast—to make it automatic.
- Track Your Progress: Use a step counter, walking app, or simple checklist. Seeing your progress helps maintain motivation.
Form and gear also matter. “Even small mechanical imbalances can increase injury risk over time,” Gavin said. He recommended paying attention to posture and comfort. Strategies such as core strengthening, balance training, and using insoles can help you walk more efficiently and with less fatigue—especially as you increase your daily walking volume, he said.
If You Already Have Back Pain
Gentle walking is usually safe—and even recommended—for people with low back pain.
It’s understandable for people with low back pain to avoid movement. “They perceive that any movement will cause pain, so they move less,” Ide-Don said. While avoiding movement may help briefly during acute pain, people should start moving again after a couple of days as symptoms calm down.
Guidelines for walking with back pain, according to Ide-Don and Williams, include:
- Find a level you can consistently perform where symptoms don’t significantly worsen.
- Don’t let pain increase by more than three points on a 10-point scale beyond your baseline.
- Consider alternatives such as pool walking, swimming, and stationary cycling if regular walking is too uncomfortable.
- Use adjuncts such as heat and cold therapy to calm muscle spasms, one of the most common symptoms of back pain.
“Walking is one way to gently reintroduce movement to the back in a less threatening and fearful manner,” Ide-Don said. It can integrate perfectly into a comprehensive rehabilitation strategy—the gold standard treatment for chronic back pain.
