Lower back pain during pancake, pike

[Hardy Evans]

What would cause this? I usually PNF these stretches 2x a week each, and I've started getting a lot of lower back pain during and immediately after each set.

[Sam Rea]

Most likely a warning sign from your discs, suggesting you are flexing your spine too much. PNF can sometimes make this worse as you can end up relaxing the muscles stabilising the spine at the same time as you try to relax your hamstrings.

 

My advice would be: back off. Don't do any stretches which cause this sort of pain.

Supine stretches will be the safest to begin with, since your back is flat on the floor.

After that, single-leg stretches focussing on hinging at the hip. I have found the cue of trying to arch the lumbar spine to increase the stretch (rather than bending further forward) is a good way to achieve this, as it activates the hip flexors.

At the moment I'm also having great results from windmills. They're leaving me sore for several days afterwards.

 

This is from the point of view of someone with very tight hamstrings; I'm not sure how flexible you are. But I've read from several authoritative sources that pike and pancake are quite advanced stretches. There are safer and more productive ways to improve your flexibility as a beginner.