Hello again this is Sam Visnic from endyourbackpainnow.com/blog and today what were going to cover is a fantastic
exercise for those of you who may be suffering from disc herniation.
It is called the McKenzie press-up.
Now I do not take credit for this movement at all.
It is formulated by a physical therapist a world renowned one called Robin McKenzie who
has a fantastic approach for disc herniation and this exercise only represents a very small
portion of his entire his system.
But I found it to be extremely effective if you're only going to choose one movement to
do, to assist with decreasing disk herniation pain.
Now this motion as we discussed in many of the videos and sections of my blog.
The movement that you absolutely want to avoid at all costs if you have a posterior disc
herniation is flexion which is rounding the spine forward.
The corrected motion is going to be extension of the spine which we can perform in a prone
position meaning laying face down.
What we're tending to do here is to do an extension type motion without using any of
the muscles and the lower back of the hips.
So we want to make sure that you're in a complete resting state.
Many times if you had a significant amount of pain from your disk herniation just lying
down in the prone position can give you a tremendous amount of relief.
Individuals who have an interior or pelvic tilt which is causing their pain laying face
down can actually cause them pain.
But if you have a posterior disc bulge this position allows you to have a significant
amount of decreased disc pressure which means less pressure on the nerve IE.
less pain.
As you can see here Karen is laying down in the prone position.
The spine is at a nice arrested extension position.
That would be step one of the motion.
Step two of the motion would be if she was just supporting herself actually up on her
elbows.
Which is what I'm going to have her do.
So in this position here if she is just supporting her elbows just like a child would be watching
television.
This position increases the amount of extension in the spine.
It is very helpful provided she is completely relax in this position.
This she can hold wanted this position for anywhere between 60 seconds to two minutes
at a time depending upon how it feels.
Some of those stretches in the spine may become adaptively shortened out of having a lot of
flexion in the spine for long period of time so this might take a little bit of time to
get used to.
I urge you that if you are attempting these exercise always to consult your physician
prior to doing any of this to make sure if they are right or not for you.
Don't go and do anything that may increase your pain that is not the intention.
This is for education so that you understand where you're going with these types of motions.
So we always start with the prone position first and then propping up on top of the elbows.
The full McKenzie Press-up is if Karen were to go all the way back down again.
If I were to have her put her hands underneath her shoulders as if doing a closed stance
push-up and she allows her entire lower by two completely relax takes a breath and then
slowly extends as she pushes herself up right into her arms are pretty much straight.
From that position their her back muscles are completely hanging in what I call a sagging
position.
None of the muscles in the glutes or the lower back are turned on.
She gets to the top it holds for a brief second or two and then the herself back down again.
Again keeping all the weight on the hands.
This process can be repeated for about 10 repetitions and many times I have clients
perform it every hour on the hour
or
to tolerance.