[zenon]

When I passed 40 I started to get regular lower back muscle pain when sitting or standing for some time. I understand that hamstrings tend to shorten with age and pull on the back muscles, which can irritate the muscles and tendons there. Standard advice is to do hamstring streches. This is a form of torture as far as I'm concerned, I prefer lower back pain.

Somewhere I came across the idea that squatting could help. I started to squat instead of bending over or kneeling whenever I needed to gather up something or do some work at ground level, just a few seconds or minutes at a time. It took a few weeks before I could so comforably. The ankles and hips needed some time to adapt.

The lower back pain mostly went away over a few months. This was probably had the highest benefit to effort ratio of any health improvement project I've done.

[hereforphone]

If it hurts that much to stretch your hamstrings you're already very out of shape. You have other things to worry about as well. Pursue a fitness program, not just squatting.

[glenngillen]

This is an unfounded and unhelpful generalisation. I’m nothing close to what people would consider “very out of shape”. Yet hamstring stretches are something I definitely do not enjoy doing but force myself to do through necessity. They’re the first thing I’ll skip if motivation is waning precisely because of the discomfort. I find almost all other stretches to be at least someone endorphin producing and worth the stretch. Hamstrings are pure discomfort.

[maxerickson]

Any exercise that strengthens the lower back muscles is likely to help.

[polishdude20]

Squatting may have helped because a squat tends to stretch the hamstrings along with all the other muscles down there. It's both a nice stretch and a great exercise.

[wintermutestwin]

This video talks about why stretching the hamstrings doesn't help and instead covers exercises to strengthen the weakness: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdaRZ3dmbyo