hey everybody it's Doctor Jo, and today I'm going to show you my top 5 sciatica
stretches for a herniated disc. so let's get started.
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so as I said earlier, this is for if you have a herniated disc. these stretches
would be a little bit different if it was something like piriformis syndrome.
so the first stretch is going to be rolling over onto your stomach lying
down. so this is just a simple prone prop. so what you're doing is you're starting
in the lying down position. get nice and comfortable. bring your elbows up towards
your head and then prop up on your elbows. so you can bring them in a little
bit closer if you want to. the goal of this is to keep your hips down. so you're
just coming up and getting that bend right there at that low back. so what
this is doing in theory is this is pushing that herniated disc back in to
take the pressure off the nerve, and so when that nerve gets pressed on that
sciatic nerve, that's what causes that numbness tingling going down into your
butt, down into the back of your leg, and that's what sciatica is. so with these
props, sometimes it's a little more painful at first. you might feel a lot of
the symptoms coming on, and that's ok as long as it starts to go away or subside
as you do it more. so I would just start off with 10 or 15 second,s come back down,
take a little break, and then prop back up and do this you know 3 or 4 times
slowly building up your time. so you know 20 seconds 30 seconds, and then again if
it is coming from the disc, the more you do this that pain should start coming
back to the center, or we call it centralizing and that's a good thing. a
lot of times people will say well I don't feel it anymore here, but I feel it
more in the low back, and that's centralizing, and that's actually a good
thing. that's what you want. so after you do those four a couple times, then you're
going to roll over onto your back, and even though the sciatica is coming from
the disc, we want to stretch out the piriformis muscle.
so a great one for that is the figure four stretch. that one's the one that I
like the most. so the side that you want to stretch, if it's my left side I'm
going to cross that leg over. and the reason it's called a figure four is
because if you look down it looks like the number four. so for this one, you can
do it a couple different ways. the easiest way if you have some flexibility
and if you can do it without straining your neck, it's just to grab underneath
the other side and pull up towards you and you should feel that stretch right
through there, that piriformis area. so you want to hold that stretch for thirty
Seconds. now if this is something where you're not super flexible or you're
already feeling the stretch right here, you don't have to do that extra piece. or
if you having a hard time grabbing that leg you can just slide your heel up
closer to your bottom which will bring that leg up a little more, or you can
take like a belt or strap and wrap it around that leg and then just pull it up
that way because you don't want to end up stressing your neck and getting your
neck hurting to try and get the low back in that sciatica feeling better. so make
sure that you're keeping the rest of your body in a good neutral position. so
the last couple stretches and I I say quote "stretches" are really going to be
nerve glides because if the sciatic nerve is getting compressed at your discs, you
want to do some things where you're kind of trying to move or glide that sciatic
nerve to get it freed up. now with nerve glides or neural flossing some people
call it, you really want to be very careful with this because nerves are
pretty fragile. so if you do a lot, sometimes you just irritate it more so I
always tell people just do 10 once a day that's it. don't do ten, three or four
times a day throughout the day, I would just start off with one set and stick
pretty close to that because again if you do too many you're going to irritate
it. so this time if it's still my left side that has that sciatica on it, I'm
going to bring my leg up to about a ninety degree at the hip and grab
underneath right here. you don't have to pull up you're just kind of supporting
that leg. and then all you're going to do is
straighten out your leg and kind of bend your toes towards you and then come back
down. so this isn't a 30-second hold like the piriformis stretch, this is actually
just going up and down. so toes are kind of pointed as you come up pull them
towards you and you just go till you feel, you might feel that numbness and
tingling as you go, but this is kind of flossing or gliding that nerve. and so
again you just want to do about ten of those and then that's it. so the last two
are going to be sitting in a chair. so the fourth stretch is going to be
another one of those glides. so I had mentioned on the other one that you're
always supposed to do ten just once a day. if you're doing different ones it's
okay to do just ten of each as long as it's different, but if you're feeling
like you did one set and it still is still feeling a little tingling, that
tingling didn't go away, I wouldn't recommend doing all these at one time.
maybe spread it out through the day. so now that you're sitting this time for
the glide. what you're gonna do is you're gonna kick out that leg and as you kick
out that leg, you're gonna bend your head back. and then when you come back down,
you're gonna curl your chin in towards your chest. so it's gonna be kicking out,
looking up, and then as you come down kind of tuck it in. so we're just taking
that nerve all the way the whole chain up to the neck, and flossing or gliding
it through. so if it's kind of compressed somewhere that's getting pinched
somewhere, this kind of helps loosen it up and gets that nerve free. so it's not
getting compressed on, it's not getting pinched on, or maybe if there's some
scarring it will break it up. so get just ten of those and then if you're doing
another kind of a stretch that's okay, or a different glide, but don't keep doing
them all at one time because then that might just irritate it. so the last one
you're gonna be using a stool. so this one is still kind of a glide, but
it's slightly different. so that's why I think it's okay to do it with these
other ones. but again just ten of them. so I'm just going to
switch it up because the stool is on my right side so the side that you're
having that sciatica, you want to prop it up. the key to this is you want to
keep your toes and your foot straight. a lot of times if you have really bad
sciatica, once you start doing the glide that I'm going to show you, a lot of
times the leg wants to turn in. it wants to follow your body. really try and keep
it nice and forward because if it starts going over, then you're not really
getting that Glide or that stretch or that flossing that you want. so just try
and keep those feet, the the foot and the toes straight forward. so you want to
keep your body nice and upright, and you want to look straight ahead. so I'm going
to be looking at you a little bit but you want to look straight ahead. keep
your head in that neutral position and then once you get in this nice position,
you're going to take the hand of the opposite side, and just lean away from
that side. so again if you are really tight and you have a lot of that
irritation going on, a lot of times when someone bends to the side, their foot
wants to go like that with their body. try not to let it do that.
you want to keep everything nice and straight, and just lean away from that
side. so again, just doing about 10 of these. don't feel like you have to go all
the way down to the floor, you're just going till you feel that little bit of a
stretch, and then come back up because you don't want to irritate that nerve. so
those were my top five sciatica stretches from a herniated disk. if you'd
like to help support my channel, click on the link to find out how, and don't
forget to subscribe by clicking down there. and remember, be safe (don't
irritate that nerve), have fun, and I hope you feel better soon.