I have developed back pain after exercising, what to do?

Q: I am 27 years old. Recently, I started doing push-ups and now I have back pain. This is very annoying, should I stop doing push-ups or continue considering the problem as an initial hiccup?

A:The most important aspect of exercising is form and technique. If you are failing in that respect, then no matter how many repetitions you do, either you will land up hurting yourself or wasting time doing them. In a push-up, you need to have your hands placed right under your shoulder joints and go down with your chest in between that. There should be a definite up and down movement rather than a forward and back movement, like most people tend to do. There are 3 positions that your lower body can hold, depending on how advanced you are: the easiest is to keep your knees down, right under the hip joints, like a box position. Slightly tougher than this is when you do a push-up with your knees on the mat but placed slightly away from the knees, towards the back of the body. The toughest is to have your knees off the ground with your toes. If you are experiencing pain, you might like to try going back to the beginners positions and then slowly working towards advanced positions, over a couple of weeks. If this still doesn’t help, please see a doctor.