hey everybody it's Doctor Jo and Lion Kali, and today I'm going to show you my top 5
ways to relieve lumbar stenosis. so let's get started.
so the first thing we're gonna do is a simple knee to chest stretch. so just go
ahead and lie down on your back. I like propping my knees up. that just takes
some pressure off of your back and especially if you have that lumbar
stenosis. you want to bring up bring them up, just to relax that back a little bit.
you don't have to, sometimes people like to keep one leg down and bring the other
one up, but I like to keep them bent. another big thing is sometimes people
grab up here for that knee to chest. if you have any knee issues, you might want
to grab underneath. I just prefer that because that's sometimes putting a lot
of pressure on your knee joint. so if you don't have any problems with your knees
that's fine, but I like to grab underneath. once you grab underneath, just
bring that knee up towards your chest as far as you comfortably can. sometimes
people have a little pain in the groin area, so if you have some pain while
doing that, just don't pull up quite as hard. just go to comfort level. you should
feel a nice gentle stretch in your low back with this and this just kind of
helps open up those spaces and takes the pressure off of those nerves coming out
of the canals of the spine. so you want to hold this for about 30 seconds, and I
would definitely do both sides so switching is the best for me. if you want
to do them all on one side and then switch, you can, but I like alternating
back and forth so one has a little bit of a break. so 30 seconds, three times on
each side. so the next one is going to be a glute stretch. a lot of times with that
lumbar stenosis, if you have tight gluts that puts a lot of pressure on the spine
and again if there's pressure there that makes those little canals were the
openings with those nerves going through smaller, and then it presses on those
nerves, and that's what causes a lot of the pain. so a simple glute stretch, the
easiest one is probably just doing the figure four stretch. if you have a hard
time doing it this way, you can do it seated in a chair, but the side that you
want to stretch you're going to cross it over.
or the other just the top of the knee right there. and so it looks like a
figure four. if you're looking down that's why it's called a figure four
stretch. so you can do this a couple different ways. you want to really try
and keep your back straight if you can. some people kind of curl up like this,
but if you're curling your back, you're not really getting a stretch, and if you
have to notice this even though the the bending sometimes gives it relief you
don't want to do an extreme bending motion. so you can either keep your back
straight and lean forward like that to get a stretch, and I'm feeling a nice
stretch right through there. or you can stay in one spot keeping that back
straight and then slide your heel up this way, and that will give you a big
stretch as well. so this is another one where it's thirty Seconds. I would do
them on each side just like we talked about. so switching in between and doing
thirty seconds on each side. so either again you can lean forward with your
back straight or you can slide that heel up to get that stretch, and again that
stretch should be comfortable it shouldn't be painful.
just some tension and some pressure on it. so then the next one's going to be
kind of a combination move. we're just gonna start off with a pelvic tilt, but
we're gonna take it all the way into a dead bug exercise. but the the pelvic
tilt is how you start. so you really want to master the pelvic tilt first. and all
that is is basically it's like it sounds. you want to take your pelvis and tilt it.
so when I'm doing a pelvic tilt, this little curve in my back I want to
flatten it out towards the floor, or the bed, or the couch. you don't have to get
down on the floor. if you're having a lot of pain, it's hard to get up off the
floor, you can do this on your bed or on the couch, but the firmer the better. when
you're doing that pelvic tilt, you want to use your core and your pelvic muscles
to do this. you don't want to use your legs. so if you're kind of bringing your
bottom up like this, I'm pushing with my gluts and my hamstrings, that's not what
you want. to help with that lumbar stenosis is to help the strengthening of
the core, you want to use your core muscles to flatten it out. a lot of times
I'll tell my patients it's like you're fake laughing. like have you gone
your your core tightens up and that's what you want. you want it you want to
feel those muscles contracting. so just holding it for about three to five
seconds, and then relaxing. once you have that pelvic tilt down and you feel like
you're doing a good job not using your legs anymore, then you're going to go
into the dead bug. and the reason that you don't want to use your legs to hold
that tilt is because now you're gonna add some components and while you're
holding that tilt. so I'm going to get myself in that pelvic tilt, and then I'm
gonna take one leg and just lift it up a little bit off the ground. I don't have
to bring it all the way up, I'm just trying to keep that tilt the whole time.
I'm lifting the leg and then when I lift the leg I'm gonna take my opposite arm
and bring it up. so I'm going up like this, and then coming back down. so again
I'm not pulling my knee all the way up to my chest, I'm just kind of lifting it
up, but I'm trying to keep that tilt the whole time. and if you do it right it's a
lot harder than it it's like I can do you know this, but I'm not holding that
tilt. so it's really all about holding that tilt and going slow. and then so
just gently lifting up lifting the arm up, getting that cross pattern in your
body, and then slowly coming back down and building up that core strength is
really going to help with that lumbar stenosis. so that since this is kind of a
combination move, it's a little hard to get figured out. I just do maybe three
lifts on each side and then take a break. if you have to stop in between and reset
the tilt, that's fine. so if I just did one and then come back down, I can stop
and reset that tilt, but if if you can hold it the whole time, that's even
better. so then the next exercise is going to be
going all the way up into a bridge. so again where now we're going to be
strengthening the glutes and the hamstrings. so we're still doing some
strengthening. with bridging you really want to now use those glutes to
hamstrings and kind of drive your knees forward as you're lifting up. you want to
go one segment of at a time of your back. you don't have to stop at each segment,
but you don't want to just come up and down like this. you don't want to just
use your momentum of your body to do it. you really want to come up one segment
at a time, drive those knees forward, and then nice
and slowly coming back down. so with the bridging, as long as it feels good, you
just want to come to about level. you don't want to try and arch your back up.
and then as long as it's not painful, you can just start off with maybe ten, two
sets of ten, a couple times a day. so the last one that's going to be getting up
and we're going to get onto all fours or in quadrupeds. so once you get into this
position, again if you can't get on the floor, you can do these on your bed. it
might be a little squishy, so that might actually make you work a little bit
harder because it'll be unstable, but you can definitely do these in the bed. so
when you're in this quadrupeds position, or on for all fours, you want to try and
keep your back again kind of straight. tighten up that core. so you're not
sagging down like this, you're not arching up, you know that's a pretty
straight line. it might not be exact, but you really want to keep that core nice
and tight the whole time. so in this position, you're gonna do what we call a
bird dog. and so a bird dog is basically you're lifting one arm and kicking out
the opposite leg. so it's kind of like the dead bug, but now you're having to do
a little more stability of your whole body. so if you want to just start with
lifting out your arms, straightening them out, you can do that. just to kind of
practice a little bit. you can also then just kick your leg out, but the goal
especially when you're doing the leg kick is not to lean over and kick like
that. you want your back to stay flat that whole time. like if I had a glass of
water on my back, I'm trying not to make that glass of water fall. so once you
have those two pretty much mastered, then you put it together where you're putting
one arm out and the opposite leg out. and really just nice try and control it.
again imagine that you have that Cup on your back and if you're going fast,
you're probably going to spill it. so since this one's a little bit tougher,
you definitely want to just start off with maybe two on each side. see how you
feel, and then do that a couple times a day.
and you can progress from there. so those are my top five ways to relieve lumbar
stenosis. if you'd like to help support my channel, make sure and click on the
link up there. and don't forget to subscribe by clicking, we're?, down there.
and remember be safe, have fun, and I hope you feel better soon.