Stretching feels good, but has little effect in injury prevention. In general, back pain is very common across the population and quite resistant to reliable pr

Stretching feels good, but has little effect in injury prevention. In general, back pain is very common across the population and quite resistant to reliable prevention or treatment. I think there was a study that found only education and physical activity had any effect at all (and stretching is not useful for meeting minimum physical activity standards). Also, people tend to develop disc bulges as they age, and the vast majority are asymptomatic. In this case probably the pain is actually caused by the herniation, but don't nocebo yourself into pain just because there are some deformities in your spine.