 The study will employ a two arm parallel group stratified controlled trial. A total of 60 subjects from 18 through 64 years old with low back pain on at least half the days over the previous 6 months will be recruited by the Wilton Family YMCA to participate in the study. The participants within each recruitment cohort will be randomized by a sub-investigator who is a statistician to the two treatment arms in a ratio of 1:1 stretching exercise experimental arm: self-care book active comparator arm. Three cohorts of 10 subjects will receive the intervention stretching exercise program at the Wilton Family YMCA from January 2015 to October 2015. The stretching exercise program consists of 12 standardized weekly stretching exercise sessions that incrementally increase in duration from 15-30 minutes. Participants who receive the stretching exercise intervention will be asked to practice the identical stretches that they did in class on non-class days and will be given handouts and a companion CD to assist in this. Thirty control subjects will receive a self-care book. All analyses will be conducted assuming intent-to-treat principles using SAS statistical software. All P values and 95 CIs will be 2-sided with statistical significance at the P 0.05 value. 