In this video, I'm going to go over easy sciatica pain relief
exercises for seniors. Stay tuned.
Hey, everyone. Dr. Rowe coming to you from SpineCare in St.
Joseph, Michigan. In this video, we're going to go over
easy sciatica pain relief exercises with seniors in mind.
So, very straightforward, simple movements. A note about
these exercises. Each one works just a little bit differently.
Each one is going to target a different cause of sciatica
including bulging or herniated disc causing a pinched nerve,
spinal stenosis, and piriformis syndrome. To get the best
results, go through them all. Use what gives you the most
relief. With that being said, let's get started. So, before
we start, let's go over an important thing that we're
going to be looking for during these exercises and that is
called centralization. In a nutshell, the biggest cause of
sciatica is due to a pinch nerve from a bulging disc or a
herniated disc. The more pressure being put onto those
nerve roots, the more pain goes down the leg. What we want to
focus on doing is taking pressure off that nerve and
when that happens, the pain starts to come back up or
centralize towards the lower back. So, as you do this, if
you see the pain lessen and come back up the leg, that's a
good sign. What we don't want to see is pain going further
down the leg and if that's the case, you want to back off
slightly from these exercises. So, let's start with a couple
easy exercises that you can do standing that are going to help
address the biggest cause of sciatica. Again, that bulging
or hernated disc putting pressure on a nerve. So, the
first one is called back extension. Very very easy to
do. We're just going to start standing with very good upright
posture. Have your body and back as straight as possible.
You're going to take your thumbs and you're going to
place them right above the belt line. Just press right into the
muscles right off to the side of the spine. We're not going
to press directly over the spine. You want to just press
in there gently and maintain that. From there, what we're
going to do is keep our lower body, our hips right here and
pelvis locked and we're just going to bend backward with our
upper body. So, our shoulders backward like this. The more
that you go backward, the more it puts it into extension, the
lower back that is and you should feel a deep stretch form
over the lower back. Only go to the point where it is a
comfortable stretch if you feel anymore of that pain going down
again back off slightly. At that point, you want to hold
this position for 30 seconds and do nice, slow, controlled
breathing. Let out as much tension as you can. From there,
relax. If it felt like it work out pretty well, pretty good,
you can throw in a couple more repetitions and with each
repetition, try to build into it just a little bit more. If
you want to take this one to the next level, what you do is
just go up a level. So, take your thumbs and slightly go
above. You're going to notice it hits the back just a little
bit differently. The nice thing is you can start to pinpoint
areas that just need a little bit more attention. So, I would
start right at the belt line area, work up a little bit and
any spot that you find just gives you the most stop over
that spot and then do this for about three to 5 repetitions
this is a nice exercise that you can do throughout the day
so the next one is called a walling exercise and this one
is probably one of my favorite exercises to do for this we
just need a door frame or a wall the hardest part about
this exercise is knowing what side to put towards the wall or
the door so remember good door that is good or non painful
towards the door. So, I'm going to demonstrate what to do if
you have right-sided sciatica. So, I'm going to put my feet
together slightly spaced away from the door of the wall,
roughly about a foot and then, I'm just going to lean my body
weight, my upper body weight into that wall or the door. The
key is don't have any space between your shoulder and
elbow. So, you don't want it to look like this because if we do
this, we're just going to get an arm workout. So, just treat
that kind of like a suction cup to that wall or the door. From
there, you're just going to take your hand, place it on the
other side's hip, and gently press that hip towards the
door. As you do this, you're going to feel a very good
stretch form on that painful side. Only go to the point
where it's comfortable and you start to see that
centralization. The key with this exercise is it's going to
take pressure off that side and press it towards the center.
So, if you have a bulging disc off to the side, it's going to
really help bring it back off that pinched nerve and
hopefully get some pain relief. Again, hold this one for 30
seconds and do nice, slow, control breathing. From there,
just relax a little bit and try to repeat this one three to
five times and with each repetition, try to build into
it just a little bit more. If you want to take this one to
the next level, space your feet further away from the wall or
the door so you can lean a little bit more into it. It'll
be a lot deeper stretch but only to your comfort level.
This sciatica relief exercise is called the standing puppy
and I really like this one. Not only is it going to help with
bulging and hernated disc but it can also help with another
main cause of sciatica which is spinal stenosis. It's going to
focus on a deep pulling motion in the lower back to open up
joint spaces and also relieve pressure off pinch nerves. For
this one, we need to go next to a wall or a door. So, you're
going to start facing that door roughly about one arm length
away. You want your legs roughly hip width apart and
you're going to place all of your body weight on your heels
during this exercise. It makes it a little bit easier to do.
From there, your arms are going to go right in front of you,
hands overhead and you're just going to lean your body weight
into the door. What we want to do from here is just tuck our
chin slightly towards our chest. Use our fingers to crawl
up just a little bit until you feel an initial stretch in your
back and then from there, pretty straight forward. You're
going to bend your knees and then squat your bottom down and
away from the door. Just do this one nice and slowly. As
you go down, the more intense this will be felt. You'll
probably feel it in the upper back working down into the
middle to finally the lower back. We really want to focus
on feeling it in the lower back. Go down really really
slowly until you feel that deep stretch in the lower back. Once
we feel that, we're now going to hold this comfortably for 30
seconds and do nice, slow, controlled breathing. Just let
out as much tension as you can. If you want to make this one a
little bit more intense, what you can do is crawl with your
fingers up or just a little bit and also allow your chest to
sag forward towards the door just a little bit it will again
intensify it just a little bit more from there you're just
going to relax take a breather and then repeat this one three
to five times and with each repetition try to build into it
just a little bit more so if you want to take this one to
the next level what you can do as you do this exercise is do a
slight rotation with your hips just side to side like this it
will help open up the back just a little bit more I would build
into this one very very slowly you might find that only one
side like rotating towards your left offers you relief but if
you go towards the other side it might cause pain so again
with these ones you only want to build into movements that
are offering relief especially that centralization you can
also do a leaning motion with your hips so instead of kind of
like a turning motion like this just rock your hips from side
to side going from left to right again you might find that
one certain position maybe this time around just kind of
leaning it towards the right just offers a little bit more
relief so give that a try and if you find any movement that
offers a little bit more relief try to do that for about 10 to
15 repetitions so if you want to take this one to even the
next level as you do this lean instead of keeping your body
straight tilt it towards one side so kind of move through
your waist tilt your upper body towards one side. I'm going a
little bit towards my left and then repeat this. You're going
to notice it opens up the back just a little bit differently.
So, give that a try towards the left. You can also go towards
the right. If any of those spots, offer a little bit more
relief. Hold that for about 30 seconds and throw in an
additional three to five repetitions. Another cause of
sciatic-like pain comes from a muscle called the piriformis
lies right underneath the glutes. When this muscle
becomes strained and inflamed, it can cause a compression
injury known as piriformis syndrome tends to come about
from too much sitting so think a lot of desk work taking a
long car ride plane trip something like that if you sit
for long periods and that pain just builds and just shoots
down the back of your leg right here give this exercise a try
this one is known as the pigeon pose or the figure four it's
going to help lengthen but more importantly strengthen that
muscle and get quick and long lasting relief just lie flat on
our back like this in bed or on a floor. Whatever side that
you're having pain. Let's say it's your right side. You're
going to start off by bending your knees, keeping your feet
flat and taking the painful side's ankle and placing it
over the other side's knee. So, when you look down, should look
like a figure four. What you want to do is slide the leg
right here that's supporting our top leg backward like this
as much as we can so our heel is coming back towards our
bottom. From there, you're going to take a bent knee on
top right here and just slowly press it away from you. Do not
use your hands to do this. What you want to do is make the
glutes right here start to fire and work for it. So, the more
that you press that knee away from you, the more that you're
going to feel a lot of muscles around the hip including the
glutes and the piriformis start to fire. You only want to go to
a point where it is comfortable not causing any discomfort. If
that's the case, back off slightly like this but you're
going to hold this position right here for 5 seconds,
you're going to relax and then you're going to repeat this 10
to 15 times and with each repetition, try to build into
it just a little bit more. If it feels like you have a little
bit more energy, you can always throw in another set or two and
there's no problem doing this on both sides. In fact, I would
recommend doing this on both sides even if the other one
doesn't hurt just to keep everything in balance. So,
another really good way to strengthen the piriformis is to
do what is known as the glute bridge. It's really important
that we strengthen these muscles to make sure that they
don't cause issues later on. So, for this one, we're going
to get back into our original position, lying flat on our
back, knees bent, feet flat, and what we're going to do this
time around is tighten our core muscles. It's kind of like
taking your belly button towards your spine, bracing
your core and then, we're going to squeeze the glutes. From
there, you can take your hands, put them on your hips, or off
to your side for support. You want to just slowly lift your
hips upward towards the ceiling until your body is in a nice
straight line from your knees to your hips to your shoulders.
If you have difficulty doing this either due to pain or
weakness, go up as far as you feel comfortable but stop
before the point of pain but over time, hopefully, you will
gain strength and flexibility or you just won't have the pain
anymore to be able to get into this nice straight position. In
this position, you're going to feel ton of muscles start to
fire the core lower back but more importantly the glutes and
that piriformis you want to hold this comfortably for five
seconds you're going to relax and then you're going to repeat
this one five to 10 times and with each repetition try to
build into it just a little bit more and if it feels like you
have a little bit more energy you can always throw in another
set or two if the exercises help please support the channel
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