Saved

Quite a full day, starting with some general brush removal and minor tree felling down by the river with some local gentlemen. Then as I was thinking of having lunch another woody gentleman who runs the fishing and tourist boat concessions down at the lake dropped in asking about some planks of zelkova suitable for use as a sign. He had heard about my trips to the ailing wood yard and wondered if I could take him along. So after lunch I went along to his boat pier with Sammy and he followed us to the yard in his little buggy. It was a fairly productive trip for him and us as we were both able to heave some worthy bits and bobs from the massive pile of pick up sticks. Not really a shortage of pictorial motifs there, but I have opted instead for the end of the day where my saviour stretches rescue me from onset of back pain after these kind of strenuous activities.
I still remember fondly the first time I tried this stretch of the piriformis muscle after finding it described on the web. I was suffering a lot of pain back then and the moment I finished the first stretch I could tell that this was the bee's knees. It made me laugh out loud to feel the pain relief settling in as the stress disappeared.
I think it is fine to do this kind of legs crossed stretch even sitting up in a chair, but I find it easier to do it just before popping between the sheets still wearing my hat though. You adopt the cross legged pose, and then grab the supporting leg either above or below the foot resting on it (behind the thigh as shown here, just behind the knee or indeed in front of the knee). You should try to avoid interlocking fingers, grab one wrist with the other hand. I think that is for better circulation and avoiding pain in the fingers. Keep your upper body head and neck as relaxed as you can and lying on the floor. Then gradually pull the support leg (right here) up to heave the foot end of your other leg towards your upper regions. Let the knee relax and feel the stretch up in under the buttock (on the left side here). You should hold the stretch as long as you can without doing any kind of bouncing or repetitive straining and relaxing, this is not excercise. At least 15 seconds is good, but 30 or so is better, so be sure to keep breathing nicely. Any less time and the muscle you are trying to teach its new place just goes back to being mean and tense. I think there is a kind of pain in the stretch, but it feels good not nasty and when I let the stretch go I feel a real sense of mending and the sense of impending back pain disappears. The essence is getting the crooked foot closer to your head and your knee further away, so if you are keen to push it further use your hands in a different way to push the (left) knee down and away and pull the foot up by grabbing the right leg with the right hand and pulling.
Obviously reverse all and repeat for a couple of times. If you don't feel that sense of stretching deep up and under your bum you are not doing it right. You will probably also find it more difficult on one side or the other if you are strongly biased to one or other side of your body, just try to be patient and both sides should balance out after a few goes. If you are in pain repeat this a few times a day and you should start to feel relief almost immediately. The knowledge that I can relieve lower back pain by stetching my legs and buttocks has been a revelation to me and I now have full confidence that these things work.