I think that yoga is best for back flexibility and mobility, but it’s not the best exercise you can do to work your core muscles, as even poses like the boat pose (arms and legs up straight in the air to make a V shape) will make your outer abs work hard, but not necessarily your deep core abdominal muscles or your pelvic floor.

Pilates I did for years with no apparently effect in either preventing nor treating back pain. While I learnt about things such as the neutral spine position and exercises as to strengthen your pelvic floor, the difficulty is that these are very small subtle movements, often not visible by an instructor especially in a group class situation. When I had my second bout of lower back pain, I went back to pilates too quickly and even though I deliberately didn’t do any rolling spine exercises, I somehow prolonged my disc issue and started getting pins and needles in my legs.

I think cycling is great for getting your muscles moving during the period of back pain and obviously strengthening your glutes and hamstrings, but you need to hold yourself in the correct position (ie not hunch over the handlebars).

So far I’ve been impressed with the Bounce Back classes because (a) on my physio’s recommendation I did an ultrasound before the classes, which showed me, for instance, that when I thought I was activating my pelvic floor in fact nothing was happening (b) the classes are small and (c) specialised attention from my treating physio. The course costs $300 for 8 1-hour classes, which is comparable to pilates, and I can claim some of the cost through my health insurance.

Good luck! Back pain is no fun.

I too have a terrible back and poor core muscles etc etc etc

I’m sure that simply riding a bike SHOULD be able to fix all my problems.