Hi, I’m Michelle, and today I’m going to be showing you some stretches for coccyx pain. Now,
to do this I need to show you a little bit about where the coccyx is, and then we're going
to go through a series of four stretches and an exercise to help you relax the muscles around the
coccyx bone. So to know where the coccyx is, and most of you probably know where your coccyx is,
it's the tailbone at the very end of the spine. So if you look at it like that,
you can see that it curls underneath, underneath our body. Now, there's actually muscles that
attach to this coccyx, this little bone; there's muscles that attach to the back part of it,
the sides here, and these are your glutes, the big glutes actually attach to that side,
and they can move the coccyx backwards. And then your pelvic floor muscles that run underneath
here and through the side here can then move the pelvic floor – can then move the coccyx forward.
So the coccyx can move backwards, and it can move forward. So muscles that hold it backwards or hold
it forwards can cause pain in that area, and a nice little study that I’ve got linked above shows
that doing some of the stretches that I’m going to show you today can help relieve coccygeal pain. So
we're going to go through those stretches in just a moment. And if you want a program, I have one,
both for men and for women linked above that will help you get a really good stretch for those areas
as well, and a relaxation for those areas. So let's get started with our stretches right now.
All right, so you'll need to be on the ground to do these stretches, and we're just going to take
the stretches slowly and gently. If you feel any discomfort, obviously stop them straight away. So
I’m going to show you, at home you might like to pause the video and take a little bit longer with
each stretch. The first stretch is a lying down stretch, and this is the stretch for the middle
of the buttock, it's called a piriformis stretch. So I’m going to take my left leg right across
the other knee, and then bring the knees into my chest like this. You can hold on behind the thigh,
if your knees are sore or you can hold on around the front of the shin. Now,
you'll feel this stretch right in the middle of the buttock, when you hold it,
you're thinking what's that got to do with my coccyx. This muscle attaches to tissues
that actually attach to your coccyx. So take the stretch gently and just breathe and relax with the
stretch. And to do the same stretch on the other side, allow my legs down, I’m going to cross my
right knee right across my left leg, so you can cross there. And again, either hands around the
back of the thigh or around the front of the shin, and bring those legs directly into your body,
and again, this time you'll feel a stretch right in the middle of your right buttock.
Now in the study above, this stretch was actually held for a period of two minutes,
and it was performed a couple of times in a row, three times a week. So that was the prescription
in that particular study. I tend to recommend stretches held for 15 to 30 seconds each,
and a couple of times in a row, and let's take that one down, but it's up to you,
depending on the amount of time you've got available; and whether the stretches are
irritable for your body or not, you might want to do a little bit less when you're starting out.
Second stretch is the glute stretch, which you might have already seen. Take your left foot up,
turn the left knee out, and again, you can bring the legs up, you can reach for behind the thigh
if it's difficult for you to reach in front of the shin, you can even use a towel around the front of
the shin if you need to. The stretch is right in the middle of the buttock again on the left leg,
and again just breathing out, and relaxing with the stretch, and I’ll take the leg down,
and I just want to show you on the other side as well. So my right leg is coming up,
turn the leg out, turn the knee outwards, and then slowly and just gently bring the leg off the body,
reaching through around the thigh or around the shins, again now to stretch in the middle of the
right buttock and that's where I’m feeling that stretch there, and I’m going to lower down slowly.
And the final stretch I'm going to do and show you in this position for your coccyx is actually just
a hamstring stretch, so you've probably seen this one before bringing the leg up, keep the other
leg bent, hands behind the thigh, if you can't reach that you could always use a towel to bring
the leg up. And keeping the toe pointed towards the ceiling, so I haven't got my foot flexed,
I’m not putting any pressure on the nerves, I’m keeping the toe pointed upwards, and just gently
guide the leg in towards your body, towards your chest – important that you keep your lower back on
the ground there, and again, just breathing out with the stretch. And you'll feel that stretch
through that big muscle belly through here, and this stretch again attaches to tissues into the
buttock, into the sitting bone, and again that attached to the coccyx. So it's quite interesting,
isn't it, how some muscles can then affect structures like the coccyx. Doing the other leg,
hands behind the thigh, bring the leg up, and again, just guiding the leg back slowly,
again just relaxing with the breath. And we'll take the leg down slowly.
So we're now coming into our final stretch before we actually stretch out the pelvic floor muscles.
So coming on to my side, and I want to show you two little variations of this stretch,
the first one is included in the study, this is an iliopsoas stretch. This is a stretch for the
muscles that cross through the front of the hip here. So this stretch can be done in this long
lunge position. You take yourself into a long kneeling position. We're stretching through
here across the front of the hip. So if you tilt your pelvis forward and down, that direction,
you'll start to feel the stretch. Now, I've got my right leg back, I need to raise my right arm
high above me and tilt slightly to the left, and that's how you'll stretch both parts of that
muscle. And I’ll just do the other side just as a demonstration for you. You can again, as I said,
hold it longer at home. So we've got the right leg coming forward, the left leg is back,
I'm going to rest my body weight on the front thigh, lifting my left arm up this time,
lunging forward, so that I'm really getting a good stretch to the front of that left hip,
and tilting across and coming back down and right down. And this stretch can also be done
lying on a bench, and you can see the image above with that particular stretch if you'd
like to do that as an alternative stretch for the front of the hip if you're unable to kneel.
So finally, we're going to go through how to relax your pelvic floor and those muscles that
are deep. You can see them in the image above, the deep coccyx muscle that actually attaches
to the coccyx bone. So again, coming around, and you don't want to be sitting on your bottom you
want to be lying down comfortably. Taking it right down, legs down – if you've got a pillow at home,
you can insert it under your legs just to allow your legs to roll out comfortably, arms down,
by your sides. And there's a bit of visualization and breathing involved in this stretch,
so what I want you to do is to breathe into your belly, so breathing in so that your belly rises,
and then let the air out slowly. So when you're breathing deeply, your pelvic floor
tends to relax. Again, breathe into the belly, so you've really got to get a belly breath there,
breathing into that lower abdominal area, let the belly rise, and let it sink down. Now,
think about the area between your sitting bones. Visualize that area and think about letting down
and out through the anus as if you're passing wind, and as if you're passing gas. So I want you
to breathe in, and soften down, let down through the pelvic floor, let the anus lower down and
breathe out slowly. This takes a bit of practice. Let's go one more time, breathing into the belly,
visualize the sitting bones, visualize the area between the sitting bones, and lowering that
area down and visualize allowing yourself to pass gas so you can feel the anus move down slightly,
and then slowly relax. And you might like to try that a couple more times just with some relaxed
deep breathing in this position, and that's a very good thing to practice regularly as well.
So what have we gone through? We've gone through a number of stretches that are
involved in stretching the muscles around the coccyx, and we've also gone through how to
relax the pelvic floor muscles that can pull the coccyx forward. So I really hope this information
helps you relax through your pelvic floor and relax the pain around your coccyx. I’d love to
hear from you. If you've got any comments on how these exercises help you at home below,
and I look forward to exercising with you next time. Bye for now.